Solar power cost down 25% in five months – “There’s no reason why the cost of solar will ever increase again”
Solar power cost down 25% in five months – “There’s no reason why the cost of solar will ever increase again”
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Solar power WILL NEVER replace fossil fuels.
Say it again.
Never in a million years.
Oliver Mayo you’re right. it won’t take a million years. at the rate we’re going, it should only take about 30 or 40. factor in moore’s law and perhaps 25 or 30. mix in wind, geothermal, and nuclear fusion and fossil fuels are well on their way to becoming fossils themselves…pretty much on pace with your line of thinking.
Wasim Muklashy Lol. Ok mate.
When you have installed 70,000 GW of solar panels and worked out how to store it let me know.
Nuclear fusion? Non operational at present and probably never will be a practical option.
I can power the whole earth with 5000 tonnes of thorium. Solar power is a complete waste of time and resources. It is too diffuse.
Oliver Mayo Who needs 70,000 Gwh of solar panels!? That’s insane. Of course not. But with a mix of renewables, we’re already making serious headway into running on clean energy and to discredit that is, well, ignorant. And with the price of renewables dropping considerably (solar alone dropped 25% in the past half year), it’s more incentive to continue innovating in those fields.
Heck, 6 countries already run completely on renewables (a mix of solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear), and more than one state in the U.S. alone are already near or past 30% there, including California. It’s not that it can’t be done, it just needs the same focus and funds as the dirty energy sources have enjoyed for the past 100 years.
Not to mention private sector engagement such as every major car company following Tesla’s lead and trying to grapple for market share in all electric cars as they all see it going that way. And speaking of Tesla, they’ve managed to make pretty good progress in energy storage for both cars, homes, and businesses, which, well, is not a bad start.
As far as nuclear fusion, you’re right. Not operational ‘at present.’ But going back to your original post, it won’t take a million years to get there. But it’ll get there. Just last week, Germany’s fusion stellarator was reported to be operating with less than 1 in 100,000 error rate (http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/german-nuclear-fusion-stellerator.html)
So to say “never in a million years” is about as short-sighted as a profoundly bold statement can be.
Wasim Muklashy You will need 70,000 GW of generating capacity worldwide if you want to totally replace the energy contribution the oil and coal industries make. It is that simple.
I dont care a hoot about Tesla this or that or how many countries run on renewables. Its all rendered totally invalid by the sheer scale of energy demand globally.
Fusion is all well and good but it might take 20 or 50 years.. it might never happen. We have fission and that is good enough.
You are dreaming if you believe solar power is going to make a meaningful dent in a 70,000 gigawatt energy demand. I find it difficult to believe wind will have much impact, we need to get into nuclear power in a big way and do it within the next 20 years.
Wasim Muklashy
I would say that solar photovoltaics’ are a fusion energy resource.
Oliver Mayo According to oilprice.com – Crude Oil Prices Today | OilPrice.com cheap conventional oil will no longer have the capacity to independently meet global energy demand by 2030, at the current rate of consumption. The unconventional oil sources (Arctic, deep ocean, tar sands, heavy crude and shale) have a production cost averaging 5 to 7 times higher than conventional oil production. The problem is not that oil will immediately run out, but that the retail price of that oil will not be affordable by any economy on the planet. In the US alone, a $billion is sucked out of the economy for every $0.10 that gasoline rises at the pump that would otherwise be available to buy other goods and services. Millions of jobs hinge on people spending money on those other goods and services. It was the price of oil hitting $147 in the summer of 2008 that precipitated a Global Recession which subsequently precipitated a massive debt default and the Financial Crisis.
Mac Baird the world will continue to function even if oil is 150 bucks a barrel the higher the price the more you can extract.
Coal is still plentiful and cheap as well.
Solar cant touch it. It does not meet the scale involved whatsoever.
Even the UK with a mere 40GW of demand. Try and supply that with solar!!
Sorry Oliver Mayo, the laws of economics say otherwise. The price of oil hits demand destruction around $100/barrel, the point at which people begin to change their behavior relative to transportation and heating and where many alternative energy sources become competitive. That is also the point where the global economy begins to go into recession, reduced consumer discretionary spending and rising unemployment, starting with the Third World and progressing to the G-20 nations. We have been there and done that in 2008. The indirect costs of coal on the biosphere make coal the most expensive of the fossil fuels, as China is currently demonstrating. Alternative energy production will continue to grow, and that growth will accelerate significantly at the oil demand destruction level. If you are able to keep your job in that recessionary environment, ask yourself at what price does gasoline and oil consume all of your discretionary income. At what point does a 30mpg vehicle become too expensive to operate? For the majority of the US population, that point was found to be when gasoline gets north of $4 at the pump. Shale oil doesn’t even become profitable until oil is north of about $60 to $65 (gasoline about $2.75), and a shale well has a 30% depletion rate compared to the 3% depletion rate of conventional oil. As the price of oil rises, the earnings of every other sector of the economy declines because they depend on oil throughout their process, input to output. I will be laughing all the way to the bank in my Nissan Leaf EV that averages 5.2 miles per 10 cent kWh, which is currently 80% natural gas and 20% renewable with my utility. So my 30 miles costs me less than $0.60 versus $2 for a 30 mpg car with gasoline at $2, or $4, $5, $6, $7, etc. as the cost of oil rises, and I don’t even have oil to change in my EV motor.
We need our gov to support are supplies on smoker energy
Mac Baird You are nuts.
I dont care a shit about the cost of oil or not.
I am telling you solar power is hugely expensive per Megawatt produced. It simply cannot be scaled up to meet energy demands on this scale.
The price of oil or commodities had nothing to do with the economic crash nor did it precipitate it. When markets crash investors throw money at commodities instead.
Only a small part of my income is spent on energy. Americans use in excess of 1800 gallons of oil energy equivalent, 3 times more than the average European. Oil prices screw Americans harder.
Coal is dirt cheap but also dirty, the Chinese have I believe plans for 80 GW of new reactors on going.
Oliver, your economic illiteracy is appalling. The price of solar, wind, tidal, geothermal is nearing parity with fossil fuels, which are a finite resource from which all the low hanging cheap fruit has been picked. China is the most aggressive economy on implementing renewable energy. Nuclear power, a technology I am very familiar with from 20 years in the Submarine force, is also a finite source with huge risks and life cycle costs. What I am trying to communicate is that oil will only be affordable in the Global Economy for about 10 more years at the current consumption rate, a little longer if demand is gradually shifted to alternatives. With regard to the financial crisis and market crash, commodities crashed too. In case you have forgotten, the price of oil fell to about $32 at the end of 2008. http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC&p=M&b=5&g=0&id=p31275966646&a=350358069&listNum=5
Mac Baird Sorry mate but you know nothing about economics and even less than energy.
You are an idiot of a submariner if you think uranium is a finite resource since there are huge stockpiles of plutonium in various countires and hordes of uranium 238 in the earths crust. After that there is a portion of uranium dissolved in seawater which costs about 400% more than conventional uranium resources. Despite that even if uranium prices were ten times higher than today it would make not a shit of difference to the cost of nuclear power as fuel is a tiny portion of the cost. Also to say nothing of the thousands of tonnes of thorium, or enriched uranium sat in storage, even from deactivated nuclear weapons. All of this stuff is looking for a home because understandably you can’t dump it just anywhere.
As for your understanding of fossil fuel resources. Are you having a laugh? 400 years of coal reserves at least currently known, much less others which may exist. Oil and gas, did you not notice that the US is now magically a crude oil exporter? Ah yes. Missed that did you? How they doing that then? Ah yes, fracking and tar sands. Unconventional reserves. Cost to extract- circa $56/barrel. Put the oil price at $100 USD./barrel and suddenly the supply potential is immense.
The global recession was triggered by the financial systems of America and Europe collapsing. End of story. It had precisely nothing to do with commods. Yes the oil price fell, unsurprisingly, which is what happens when demand drops- suddenly people stop buying the stuff. Net result, price falls out of it’s ass.
This is all utterly irrelevant anyway because YOU are incapable of recognising that solar power is utterly incapable of being scaled up to meet global energy needs. Geothermal functions only in a few select areas. Hydropower is ecologcial rape and devours land like nothing else. Wind is questionable due to very low capacity factors and per megawatt write down cost.
You guys put solar panels on your house, or buy a windmill and suddenly see a few Kwh trickling in, and think you have cracked the world energy supply game? You simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE SCALE that global energy use operates at.
The largest solar power plant in the world is a paltry 550MW. Cost was over 2.9 billion and has a capacity factor of a mere 25%.
Hinkley point C is cheaper than that to build per MW and can run at a capacity factor in excess of 90%.
You are dreamers.
Oliver Mayo
Then I guess we will just have to wait to see how the economics all plays out. If nuclear power is considered to be cost effective and competitive on a EROEI basis, including decommissioning costs and potential environmental liability, we will see more of them. If not, we won’t. The insurance industry won’t touch them, and the banks won’t lend the construction funding without a very low probability of default.