Wind, solar to be cheapest form of power generation by 2030: Study

Maybe not such a great deal............

http://www.nationalreview.com/...-threat-clean-energy

The study was done by Greenpeace, so I'm skeptical of its truthfullness.  Solar has an average capacity factor of around 20% while wind is around 30%, compared to nuclear being over 90% and coal around 75%.

No amount of technology can make the sun shine longer or the wind blow harder, it's up to nature if she wants green electricity to be made. 

Sure, they say it's cheaper megawatt to megawatt, however, what they don't tell you is they have to produce 5 times more solar to equal that one megawatt of nuclear.  Rated output means nothing when you can only produce 20% of it over the course of an average day.

The study was commissioned by Greenpeace, and performed and reported by the Finnish Lappeenranta University of Technology. 

  The only difference between a megawatt of electricity produced by nuclear energy and solar or wind is the foot print.  Solar and wind requires many more acres of land.  But, a megawatt is a megawatt no matter how its produced.  Yes, solar panels can't produce when the sun doesn't shine, and wind turbines can't produce when the wind doesn't blow.  But, there are storage systems for that:

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-en...e-works#.WWQSoOndmUk

You need a 500 megawatt solar plant to replace a 100 megawatt nuke plant.  It's not cheaper and will never be cheaper than nuclear.  That 1 square mile solar plant in Oakland rated at 75 MW is equivalent to a 15 MW Nuke plant.  I'm not anti solar, it will not affect my way of life,  I'm just realistic.

A nuke can make a megawatt for under 5 bucks.  Solar is currently over 30 bucks for the same megawatt.  Any article that says solar can compete with a Nuke is fake news. 

You got a credible source for those figures or are you just making them up?

Commissioned by Greenpeace reminds me of a anti-nuke hack study commissioned by Mothers Against Tennessee River Radiation (MATRR).  I've seen too much bullsh1t from green groups to believe anything they say "might" or "could" happen in the future. 

OldSalt posted:

You got a credible source for those figures or are you just making them up?

You can look up the solar yourself.  I work in the power industry and am acutely aware of what a nuke can make a MW/h for.  An average coal plant in the Valley is around 20 bucks.  Been doing this for 20 years.

Nukes make billions of watts,  steady state every hour of every day.  To put in perspective, a 1 gigawatt nuke plant only consumes about 6 pounds of fuel per day.  The fuel cost is a round off number subtracted from revenue made, it's essentially free.  Solar can't compete because it will never have the mass volume electrons that nukes enjoy.  They can say or print whatever they want, solar will never be as cheap as a nuke.

Any one an make any claim about themselves on an anonymous forum.  And, "You can look up solar yourself" is the type cop-out used by those who can't backup their claim with a reliabe source.   

OldSalt posted:

Any one an make any claim about themselves on an anonymous forum.  And, "You can look up solar yourself" is the type cop-out used by those who can't backup their claim with a reliabe source.   

 

Why would you think Hoob would lie?

giftedamateur posted:

OldSalt posted:

Any one an make any claim about themselves on an anonymous forum.  And, "You can look up solar yourself" is the type cop-out used by those who can't backup their claim with a reliabe source.   

 

Why would you think Hoob would lie?

Hoob may well have made a career in the power industry, and he may believe the claims he has made are true.  But that does not make his claims factual.  I just ask for a reliable source to support his claims. Telling me to look it up myself is a cop-out and only indicates to me that he doesn't have any source that supports his claim. 

I believe the Brookings Institution would disagree:

 https://www.brookings.edu/blog...wind-or-solar-power/

I believe Germany is in the process of leveling several old villages dating to medieval  times to get to the brown coal underneath those villages because solar and wind power have been a complete bust at suppling a reliable base load; even when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, the coal plants are churning out plant food. The sun doesn't shine at night and until someone couples a gigantic fan to a perpetual motion machine, wind power will be intermittent. Unless one has a lot of cheap land that can be inundated for hydropower, there is no way to supplant fossil or fission power yet.

Stanky posted:

I believe the Brookings Institution would disagree:

 https://www.brookings.edu/blog...wind-or-solar-power/

I believe Germany is in the process of leveling several old villages dating to medieval  times to get to the brown coal underneath those villages because solar and wind power have been a complete bust at suppling a reliable base load; even when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, the coal plants are churning out plant food. The sun doesn't shine at night and until someone couples a gigantic fan to a perpetual motion machine, wind power will be intermittent. Unless one has a lot of cheap land that can be inundated for hydropower, there is no way to supplant fossil or fission power yet.

The Germans have done this for most of the latter part of the 20th century.  Buildings with historic significance are either relocated, or dug around (filled in later).  They also import US coal as its cleaner burning. 

They also import US coal as its cleaner burning. - Dire

All you ever hear is of US coal mines which have been closed, where are the mines still operating and producing enough to export?

Is the coal we produce clean enough for picky Germany but too dirty for us?

OldSalt, its "gonna take a bigger boat" = a large land footprint  to generate the kind of solar energy to compete with a nuke.  The kind of land you only find around here in rural farms

Pick all the sites you want or phrase the question a different way  @

 https://www.google.com/webhp?h...mp;spf=1499749794619

Sure to make us farmers happy.  Some of us will advantage of the payouts instead of crop rotation.  Some have already done so selling out to surface oil.  Others will raise the prices of the increased demand on their limited produce which you will pay for.  Both have to be factored into the overall cost of solar production, yes? 

Hoop, is hydroelectric dead?

Earth Wind &  Fire

Electric Nation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r7SrQvrBPQ

I'm not at liberty to post business sensitive info on a forum.  Really don't care if you don't believe me, doesn't make it any less true.  You can easily google production costs for nukes, coal, and solar and get a US average, I'm sure.  I'm not going to spend time looking up facts I already know firsthand.

As far as solar and nukes go, you are literally comparing the prices at a 7-11 convienence store to prices at Costco.  The amount of energy produced from just one unit of Uranium is staggering, it's equal to around 3 million units of coal.  With solar having an average capacity factor of 20%, can you imagine how much land would be required to generate 3600 megawatts (like a local nuke plant) of electricity considering the solar plant in Oakland occupies one square mile and only replaces 15 megawatts of conventional sources?  Remember, it's not about rated output, it's all about how many megawatt-hours can be produced in a day.

Again, I'm not anti solar, I'm just accepting the reality of the matter.

budsfarm posted:

They also import US coal as its cleaner burning. - Dire

All you ever hear is of US coal mines which have been closed, where are the mines still operating and producing enough to export?

Is the coal we produce clean enough for picky Germany but too dirty for us?

OldSalt, its "gonna take a bigger boat" = a large land footprint  to generate the kind of solar energy to compete with a nuke.  The kind of land you only find around here in rural farms

Pick all the sites you want or phrase the question a different way  @

 https://www.google.com/webhp?h...mp;spf=1499749794619

Sure to make us farmers happy.  Some of us will advantage of the payouts instead of crop rotation.  Some have already done so selling out to surface oil.  Others will raise the prices of the increased demand on their limited produce which you will pay for.  Both have to be factored into the overall cost of solar production, yes? 

Hoop, is hydroelectric dead?

 

Hydro electric? As far as TVA is concerned, yes.  There is no more capacity to be made on the Tenn. River.  Maybe efficiency improvements on the generators/turbines to get a few more watts, but they don't plan to build anymore dams as it would not result in any gains. Not sure of the average capacity factor for hydro in this area as that is not my area of expertise and I'm not privy to that info.

Since Hooberbloob was unable to find anything to support his claim, here is what I found:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/a...icity_generation.pdf

Total System Levelized Cost of Electricity (plants entering service in 2022):

Advance Nuclear - 96.2

Wind (ons****) - 55.8

Solar (photovoltaic) - 73.7

direstraits posted:

Stanky posted:

I believe the Brookings Institution would disagree:

 https://www.brookings.edu/blog...wind-or-solar-power/

I believe Germany is in the process of leveling several old villages dating to medieval  times to get to the brown coal underneath those villages because solar and wind power have been a complete bust at suppling a reliable base load; even when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, the coal plants are churning out plant food. The sun doesn't shine at night and until someone couples a gigantic fan to a perpetual motion machine, wind power will be intermittent. Unless one has a lot of cheap land that can be inundated for hydropower, there is no way to supplant fossil or fission power yet.

The Germans have done this for most of the latter part of the 20th century.  Buildings with historic significance are either relocated, or dug around (filled in later).  They also import US coal as its cleaner burning. 

"Germany has been a forerunner in the promotion of renewable energy over the last decade with the outspoken objective to achieve a share of renewable energy in gross power production of 35% by 2020 and 80% by 2050."

Over the last ten years the share of renewable energy in Germany's gross power production has increased from around 11% in 2006 to ca. 32% in 2015 - with rapid expansions especially in wind power, photoboltaic, and biomass."

Energy Journal. 2017 Special Issue 1, Vol. 38, p189-209. 21p.

Germany is making excellent progress towards their goal of 35% of electricity production from renewable sources by 2020.

OldSalt posted:

Since Hooberbloob was unable to find anything to support his claim, here is what I found:

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/a...icity_generation.pdf

Total System Levelized Cost of Electricity (plants entering service in 2022):

Advance Nuclear - 96.2

Wind (ons****) - 55.8

Solar (photovoltaic) - 73.7

 

 

 

He said he wasn't going to do it, not that he was unable to do it.