On July 30 2014 09:07 GreenHorizons wrote:
Well radical advance in batteries/energy storage doubles for solar and electric cars (although the current actual over lap is limited) so I kind of lump that in with solar/energy R&D. The current solar plants have made significant advances in storing the solar energy on the massive scale with salt, and the smaller car type versions could be enlarged to make them part of typical homes.
Well no, nuclear reactors don't make good traditional bombs, but they more than do the job of the suitcase nukes we've been so terrified of for the past decade+. Not to mention they provide resources that would be useful in making said suitcase dirty bomb.
I'll consider us turned toward solar when instead of 'drill baby drill' we hear chants of 'solar, solar' from the RNC.
Show nested quote +
On July 30 2014 08:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
One of the fundamental problems with solar is that it's not always producing electricity. So unless something radical changes, like mass battery storage becomes feasible, we're going to need to rely on more than just solar.
Nuclear power is a bit different from nuclear weapons. There's a lot of technology overlap for sure, but to my knowledge you can't turn a nuclear power plant into a nuclear bomb.
I'm not sure what you mean by "if we don't turn to something like solar" - we've been turned to solar for decades. I also don't see oil becoming obsolete for at least a couple generations.
On July 30 2014 08:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
I agree I prefer R&D over the style of subsidies we've used.
Not just radiation fears but think about it like this. If more nuclear reactors are built here and around the world, it becomes even harder to try to prevent Iran or IS from building Nuclear power (they have to transition too) And considering how we secure our nuclear weapons, it's probably not a great idea to create more potential nuclear disasters around the world if we don't absolutely have to.
If we dedicated the American engine to developing breakthroughs in solar it would be the easiest sale in history to get the middle east and plenty of the rest of the world to buy the technology.
I have no question if we don't turn to something like solar we'll be here again 20 years later, again, asking why did we spend trillions more in another war in the middle east to protect oil we should of stopped needing decades ago?
On July 30 2014 07:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Wish we could go back in time and spend the solar subsidy money on R&D instead, which would be a good idea once the subsidies expire in 2016.
Radiation fears make nuclear a tough issue, but that's a shame really. Nuclear could fill an important role in the energy mix: it's always on (unlike solar and wind), doesn't create CO2 and we can get the fuel from domestic sources.
On July 30 2014 06:57 GreenHorizons wrote:
Hmmm. Couldn't help but notice the paper doesn't say anything about nuclear waste storage and disposal? It seems they looked at the damage from carbon emissions but not any of the other environmental costs to the various sources (as they kind of mention at the end of your quote).
Solar is the obvious way to go it's just a matter of developing the technology. The sun provides more energy to earth in a day than we use in a year so it's kind of obvious to me it's the most sensible way to power the world in our future. Seems ass backward to try to plan to burn new/different stuff (that we know is limited) for energy when we have a giant (practically unlimited) furnace constantly bombarding us with energy.
Wish we could go back in time and spend 2 trillion on Solar research, or working on a new grid, instead of a war in Iraq.
On July 30 2014 06:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
Assumes $50 / ton carbon cost:
+ Show Spoiler +
Link
Link to paper.
Assumes $50 / ton carbon cost:
+ Show Spoiler +
SUBSIDIES for renewable energy are one of the most contested areas of public policy. Billions are spent nursing the infant solar- and wind-power industries in the hope that they will one day undercut fossil fuels and drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere. The idea seems to be working. Photovoltaic panels have halved in price since 2008 and the capital cost of a solar-power plant—of which panels account for slightly under half—fell by 22% in 2010-13. In a few sunny places, solar power is providing electricity to the grid as cheaply as conventional coal- or gas-fired power plants.
But whereas the cost of a solar panel is easy to calculate, the cost of electricity is harder to assess. It depends not only on the fuel used, but also on the cost of capital (power plants take years to build and last for decades), how much of the time a plant operates, and whether it generates power at times of peak demand. To take account of all this, economists use “levelised costs”—the net present value of all costs (capital and operating) of a generating unit over its life cycle, divided by the number of megawatt-hours of electricity it is expected to supply.
The trouble, as Paul Joskow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed out, is that levelised costs do not take account of the costs of intermittency.* Wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night, so conventional power plants must be kept on standby—but are not included in the levelised cost of renewables. Electricity demand also varies during the day in ways that the supply from wind and solar generation may not match, so even if renewable forms of energy have the same levelised cost as conventional ones, the value of the power they produce may be lower. In short, levelised costs are poor at comparing different forms of power generation.
To get around that problem Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, uses a cost-benefit analysis to rank various forms of energy. The costs include those of building and running power plants, and those associated with particular technologies, such as balancing the electricity system when wind or solar plants go offline or disposing of spent nuclear-fuel rods. The benefits of renewable energy include the value of the fuel that would have been used if coal- or gas-fired plants had produced the same amount of electricity and the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions that they avoid. The table summarises these costs and benefits. It makes wind and solar power look far more expensive than they appear on the basis of levelised costs.
Mr Frank took four sorts of zero-carbon energy (solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear), plus a low-carbon sort (an especially efficient type of gas-burning plant), and compared them with various sorts of conventional power. Obviously, low- and no-carbon power plants do not avoid emissions when they are not working, though they do incur some costs. So nuclear-power plants, which run at about 90% of capacity, avoid almost four times as much CO{-2} per unit of capacity as do wind turbines, which run at about 25%; they avoid six times as much as solar arrays do. If you assume a carbon price of $50 a tonne—way over most actual prices—nuclear energy avoids over $400,000-worth of carbon emissions per megawatt (MW) of capacity, compared with only $69,500 for solar and $107,000 for wind.
Nuclear power plants, however, are vastly expensive. A new plant at Hinkley Point, in south-west England, for example, is likely to cost at least $27 billion. They are also uninsurable commercially. Yet the fact that they run around the clock makes them only 75% more expensive to build and run per MW of capacity than a solar-power plant, Mr Frank reckons.
To determine the overall cost or benefit, though, the cost of the fossil-fuel plants that have to be kept hanging around for the times when solar and wind plants stand idle must also be factored in. Mr Frank calls these “avoided capacity costs”—costs that would not have been incurred had the green-energy plants not been built. Thus a 1MW wind farm running at about 25% of capacity can replace only about 0.23MW of a coal plant running at 90% of capacity. Solar farms run at only about 15% of capacity, so they can replace even less. Seven solar plants or four wind farms would thus be needed to produce the same amount of electricity over time as a similar-sized coal-fired plant. And all that extra solar and wind capacity is expensive.
A levelised playing field
If all the costs and benefits are totted up using Mr Frank’s calculation, solar power is by far the most expensive way of reducing carbon emissions. It costs $189,000 to replace 1MW per year of power from coal. Wind is the next most expensive. Hydropower provides a modest net benefit. But the most cost-effective zero-emission technology is nuclear power. The pattern is similar if 1MW of gas-fired capacity is displaced instead of coal. And all this assumes a carbon price of $50 a tonne. Using actual carbon prices (below $10 in Europe) makes solar and wind look even worse. The carbon price would have to rise to $185 a tonne before solar power shows a net benefit.
There are, of course, all sorts of reasons to choose one form of energy over another, including emissions of pollutants other than CO2 and fear of nuclear accidents. Mr Frank does not look at these. Still, his findings have profound policy implications. At the moment, most rich countries and China subsidise solar and wind power to help stem climate change. Yet this is the most expensive way of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Meanwhile Germany and Japan, among others, are mothballing nuclear plants, which (in terms of carbon abatement) are cheaper. The implication of Mr Frank’s research is clear: governments should target emissions reductions from any source rather than focus on boosting certain kinds of renewable energy.
But whereas the cost of a solar panel is easy to calculate, the cost of electricity is harder to assess. It depends not only on the fuel used, but also on the cost of capital (power plants take years to build and last for decades), how much of the time a plant operates, and whether it generates power at times of peak demand. To take account of all this, economists use “levelised costs”—the net present value of all costs (capital and operating) of a generating unit over its life cycle, divided by the number of megawatt-hours of electricity it is expected to supply.
The trouble, as Paul Joskow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has pointed out, is that levelised costs do not take account of the costs of intermittency.* Wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night, so conventional power plants must be kept on standby—but are not included in the levelised cost of renewables. Electricity demand also varies during the day in ways that the supply from wind and solar generation may not match, so even if renewable forms of energy have the same levelised cost as conventional ones, the value of the power they produce may be lower. In short, levelised costs are poor at comparing different forms of power generation.
To get around that problem Charles Frank of the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, uses a cost-benefit analysis to rank various forms of energy. The costs include those of building and running power plants, and those associated with particular technologies, such as balancing the electricity system when wind or solar plants go offline or disposing of spent nuclear-fuel rods. The benefits of renewable energy include the value of the fuel that would have been used if coal- or gas-fired plants had produced the same amount of electricity and the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions that they avoid. The table summarises these costs and benefits. It makes wind and solar power look far more expensive than they appear on the basis of levelised costs.
Mr Frank took four sorts of zero-carbon energy (solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear), plus a low-carbon sort (an especially efficient type of gas-burning plant), and compared them with various sorts of conventional power. Obviously, low- and no-carbon power plants do not avoid emissions when they are not working, though they do incur some costs. So nuclear-power plants, which run at about 90% of capacity, avoid almost four times as much CO{-2} per unit of capacity as do wind turbines, which run at about 25%; they avoid six times as much as solar arrays do. If you assume a carbon price of $50 a tonne—way over most actual prices—nuclear energy avoids over $400,000-worth of carbon emissions per megawatt (MW) of capacity, compared with only $69,500 for solar and $107,000 for wind.
Nuclear power plants, however, are vastly expensive. A new plant at Hinkley Point, in south-west England, for example, is likely to cost at least $27 billion. They are also uninsurable commercially. Yet the fact that they run around the clock makes them only 75% more expensive to build and run per MW of capacity than a solar-power plant, Mr Frank reckons.
To determine the overall cost or benefit, though, the cost of the fossil-fuel plants that have to be kept hanging around for the times when solar and wind plants stand idle must also be factored in. Mr Frank calls these “avoided capacity costs”—costs that would not have been incurred had the green-energy plants not been built. Thus a 1MW wind farm running at about 25% of capacity can replace only about 0.23MW of a coal plant running at 90% of capacity. Solar farms run at only about 15% of capacity, so they can replace even less. Seven solar plants or four wind farms would thus be needed to produce the same amount of electricity over time as a similar-sized coal-fired plant. And all that extra solar and wind capacity is expensive.
A levelised playing field
If all the costs and benefits are totted up using Mr Frank’s calculation, solar power is by far the most expensive way of reducing carbon emissions. It costs $189,000 to replace 1MW per year of power from coal. Wind is the next most expensive. Hydropower provides a modest net benefit. But the most cost-effective zero-emission technology is nuclear power. The pattern is similar if 1MW of gas-fired capacity is displaced instead of coal. And all this assumes a carbon price of $50 a tonne. Using actual carbon prices (below $10 in Europe) makes solar and wind look even worse. The carbon price would have to rise to $185 a tonne before solar power shows a net benefit.
There are, of course, all sorts of reasons to choose one form of energy over another, including emissions of pollutants other than CO2 and fear of nuclear accidents. Mr Frank does not look at these. Still, his findings have profound policy implications. At the moment, most rich countries and China subsidise solar and wind power to help stem climate change. Yet this is the most expensive way of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Meanwhile Germany and Japan, among others, are mothballing nuclear plants, which (in terms of carbon abatement) are cheaper. The implication of Mr Frank’s research is clear: governments should target emissions reductions from any source rather than focus on boosting certain kinds of renewable energy.
Link
Link to paper.
Hmmm. Couldn't help but notice the paper doesn't say anything about nuclear waste storage and disposal? It seems they looked at the damage from carbon emissions but not any of the other environmental costs to the various sources (as they kind of mention at the end of your quote).
Solar is the obvious way to go it's just a matter of developing the technology. The sun provides more energy to earth in a day than we use in a year so it's kind of obvious to me it's the most sensible way to power the world in our future. Seems ass backward to try to plan to burn new/different stuff (that we know is limited) for energy when we have a giant (practically unlimited) furnace constantly bombarding us with energy.
Wish we could go back in time and spend 2 trillion on Solar research, or working on a new grid, instead of a war in Iraq.
Wish we could go back in time and spend the solar subsidy money on R&D instead, which would be a good idea once the subsidies expire in 2016.
Radiation fears make nuclear a tough issue, but that's a shame really. Nuclear could fill an important role in the energy mix: it's always on (unlike solar and wind), doesn't create CO2 and we can get the fuel from domestic sources.
I agree I prefer R&D over the style of subsidies we've used.
Not just radiation fears but think about it like this. If more nuclear reactors are built here and around the world, it becomes even harder to try to prevent Iran or IS from building Nuclear power (they have to transition too) And considering how we secure our nuclear weapons, it's probably not a great idea to create more potential nuclear disasters around the world if we don't absolutely have to.
If we dedicated the American engine to developing breakthroughs in solar it would be the easiest sale in history to get the middle east and plenty of the rest of the world to buy the technology.
I have no question if we don't turn to something like solar we'll be here again 20 years later, again, asking why did we spend trillions more in another war in the middle east to protect oil we should of stopped needing decades ago?
One of the fundamental problems with solar is that it's not always producing electricity. So unless something radical changes, like mass battery storage becomes feasible, we're going to need to rely on more than just solar.
Nuclear power is a bit different from nuclear weapons. There's a lot of technology overlap for sure, but to my knowledge you can't turn a nuclear power plant into a nuclear bomb.
I'm not sure what you mean by "if we don't turn to something like solar" - we've been turned to solar for decades. I also don't see oil becoming obsolete for at least a couple generations.
Well radical advance in batteries/energy storage doubles for solar and electric cars (although the current actual over lap is limited) so I kind of lump that in with solar/energy R&D. The current solar plants have made significant advances in storing the solar energy on the massive scale with salt, and the smaller car type versions could be enlarged to make them part of typical homes.
Well no, nuclear reactors don't make good traditional bombs, but they more than do the job of the suitcase nukes we've been so terrified of for the past decade+. Not to mention they provide resources that would be useful in making said suitcase dirty bomb.
I'll consider us turned toward solar when instead of 'drill baby drill' we hear chants of 'solar, solar' from the RNC.
Yeah it's *possible* that large scale energy storage will work (cheaply), but that's neither a current reality nor a future given. So we can't base public policy around it.
I don't think dirty bomb fears are that big of a concern. You yourself have argued that terrorism fears are over-blown.