‘No way’ renewables are cheaper than coal

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https://youtu.be/0dQmaAbr9_M

cars/automobile infrastructure in the beginning were more expensive than horse and buggy. but that doesn't diminish the improvement in mobility the former brought to the scene.

The argument for renewables isn't about them being cheaper. It's about preserving the planet that was here before us, and which allows us to live. Jobs, cars, and our modern infrastructure did not exist before people. It will be hard to find work in the coal industry when the planet is dead.

He's simply wrong.

Let's check the facts.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... Report.pdf

The cheapest form of coal power has a levellised cost (i.e. including all those factors) of £136/MWh. Offshore wind has a levellised cost of £100/MWh. Even taking out the cost of the carbon (worth £6/MWh for coal) and CCS (£23) that's a substanial difference. Onshore wind and large scale solar are both much, much cheaper - £63 and £61.That's less than half the price of coal.

Of course, that isn't going to map perfectly onto the Australian context. Nonetheless, the cost of the technology is not going to vary that dramatically. Even before we consider the social good of renewables, they have a clear price advantage.

Why does Mr St Baker claim otherwise? Probably because he is a coal billionaire.

True, but renewables are also cheaper. Solar could become even cheaper however as scientists have developed a material that can be painted on to panels and is more effective than traditional solar panels and easier to work with, its still a very new technology so its not widely available yet but it has potential.

But yeah if it was not becoming cheaper to use renewable energy energy companies like Xcel where I live would not be talking about it in their ads I don't think, though in my opinion they should push it even more. It's good to because with this trend perhaps the remaining coal plants here can be shut down.

I've never thought price was particularly important to this argument. I think some clever sod thought "how do we get right wingers on board?" Talk about price of course! Because they care about nothing but money and are all Thatcherites to a man. The main problem as far as I can see with solar and wind is reliability and lack of battery capacity (better to say lack of battery technology) that would allow a properly functioning grid, particularly in the UK. Our power grid has had several close calls in recent years, in part due to our new reliance on temperamental renewables and even a partial black out a few weeks ago that whispers on the wind say may be the shape of things to come.

If I were in charge we'd be aiming for fully nuclear grid.

Why not nuclear plus renewables? If people really want to address things we need to look at all the options that will put less sh*t into the air.

It's unnecessary. A fully nuclear grid designed to produce well beyond estimated needs would cover all bases, except perhaps those obsessed with price. They produce almost no air pollution, are extremely safe and the whole nuclear waste "problem" is overblown. It would be like making a fleet of exquisitely engineered, very green supertrucks that haul 25 tons each while simultaneously investing billions in hamster powered tricycles that can carry 100 kilograms a piece.

You are right that, as things stand, we are not ready for a fully renewable grid and that nuclear is the most viable alternative. Tidal lagoons could potentially have served a similar role but cannot compete with nuclear on cost. Tidal barrages probably can, but don't fill the same niche and environmentally are pretty disastrous. Plus they can't compete with the established renewables.

There are a few issues with nuclear. The first is skills - the workforce is ageing and even maintaining it is ambitious, let alone growing it at the rate full-nuclear would require. The second, as you've identified, is cost. This is a real concern for most politicians. I know your views don't really fall into conventional buckets, but everyone except the Greens is concerned about the cost of energy, particularly as poorer households tend to spend a greater proportion of their income on energy (and electricity costs are paid mostly by billpayers, not taxpayers). Advanced Modular Reactors have some prospect of reducing the cost but a whole lot of money has gone into them with very little to show for it, while solar and wind have had comparatively little money and made huge strides. Don't even get into Thorium and Fusion...

Assuming the skills barrier can be overcome I guess the question is whether you have more faith in storage solutions improving enough to give a renewables-heavy system security of supply, or in nuclear costs coming down enough for energy to be affordable. Because ultimately those are pretty similar questions - if costs get too high then there's not much point having security of supply, and if you spend enough then even current technology can make renewables secure. Ultimately both these visions of the future are still possible, but while a few years ago things were very much going in the nuclear direction, the last few years have been extremely good for renewables and it now looks like storage and demand-side response are more promising areas than nuclear.

On another note - wasn't the blackout a week or so ago caused by lightning literally striking twice?

Of all the problems I think this is the easiest to solve with the right incentives. Free training, a generous salary, a push to find intelligent enough candidates, a longish post-training contract... it's easily done.



I don't particularly. It's been a couple of years since I read about it, things may have changed since then. From memory: someone did the maths on the costs of building battery infrastructure using current technology for a renewable-only grid. I'll try and track down what I read back then but to say the costs were staggering would be an understatement. It went far beyond the problem of simple market price to problems of whether the world or even a medium sized country could realistically source all the necessary materials, not even taking into account batteries used for everyday items. Even if the UK can theoretically manage it, mega-countries like the US and China may not be able to follow.

A battery-less model was also considered which would require something like figuring out what you would need for an average day's supply in "low" seasons then over-building renewable infrastructure by 10 or 20 times and hoping you could make it through bad days. If reliability was absolutely key, then over-building on top of that was considered too. There were potentially insurmountable costs there too, similar to the battery problem. As I recall the problem was lack of space to build it all, rather than materials this time.

So, those ideas put to one side, heads inevitably turn to as-yet-unimagined battery technology. I don't think it's wise to bet on something yet to be invented, especially when it may not be possible. Thunderf00t on youtube deconstructs the supposed successor to standard Lithium-ion technology. One of his broader arguments, based on energy density - which is quite compelling - is that according to the physics and engineering we know, reasonably safe and reliable battery technology may have reached its limits for the time being, barring some new branch of physics or something else unpredictable. I suppose it's possible an amazing new storage technology is coming, one that stores and doles out electrical energy with ease. But if it comes with a caveat of "mayyybeeee a few more random explosions than normal", it is unlikely to be useful for a national energy grid. But who knows, maybe they really have cracked the problem, I suppose we will find out soon enough.

The video:




Like I said, things might have changed. Would love to know how they got around the storage problem though.



I'm fine with nationalising the whole lot and hugely subsidising energy bills for those who need it.



I'm not sure, I've heard conflicting reports. The previous close calls though were ascribed to the wind being unusually low and the black smoky coal-rolling diesel backup generators not firing up in time was blamed.

I'll try to rediscover the things I've read previously, but this from 2018, doesn't give me hope that the storage problem has been dealt with.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... expensive/

Some solar and wind advocates suggest that batteries will play the role of fossil fuels and prevent that from happening, but consider that the calculations done by my colleagues Mark Nelson and Madison Czerwinski:

Tesla’s much-hyped 100 MW lithium battery storage center in Australia can only provide enough backup power for 7,500 homes for four hours; The largest lithium battery storage center in the U.S. (in Escondido, California) can only provide enough power for 20,000 homes for four hours;

Are a few hours of battery backup sufficient to integrate solar and wind onto the grid? Not in the slightest.

Solar and wind are unreliable over months and years, not just hours. That means unfathomable quantities of electricity would need to be stored over months or years. Consider that:

It would take 696 storage centers the size of Tesla’s in Australia to provide just four hours of backup power for the Australian grid — and cost $50 billion;
It would require 15,280 storage centers the size of Escondido to provide just four hours of backup power for the U.S. grid — at an estimated cost of $764 billion.

...

After he said, “I have always tried to avoid advocating particular solutions” he then added — referencing his terminal cancer — “but maybe because time is getting thinner, I should call a spade a spade.”

MacKay proceeded to do just that. “There is this appalling delusion people have,” he said, “that we can take this thing [solar] that is currently producing one percent of our electricity and we can just scale it up.”

MacKay explained that “hundreds of valleys” would need to be flooded in order to provide the back up (through hydroelectric dams known as “pumped storage”) for unreliable wind — at great economic and environmental cost.

Such massive transformations of landscapes for energy storage have rightly been opposed by conservationists for many decades.

...

Humankind has never transitioned to energy sources that are more costly, less reliable, and have a larger environmental footprint than the incumbent — and yet that’s precisely what adding large amounts of solar and wind to the grid requires.

Moreover, past energy transitions delivered both decarbonization and “dematerialization” — less material throughput per unit of energy.

Moving to a simple, nuclear-hydro system is consistent with dematerialization and decarbonization. Places like France and Sweden have a few large power plants connected to cities by a few transmission lines. Material throughput is very low.

By contrast, a mixed system would require large amounts of solar and wind and thus far more power plants, transmission lines, and everything else required to provide reliable electricity.

In other words, going from energy-dense fuels to solar and wind requires the rematerialization of energy in the form of more land, materials, mining, storage, and waste.

...

Would you be surprised to learn that the oil and natural gas companies are perfectly aware that solar and wind lock-in their main product? That’s why they are only all too happy to invest in and promote solar and wind.

For the foreseeable future, Renewables are incapable of base-load energy production.
Come back in 12 years.

Oops,
Better make that before 12 years.
All life on this planet will have ended by then, some have claimed. <hyperbole>

BTW, "They" are talking about Thorium reactors these days here in Australia.

Of course, the hard left is against it.
What else is new. <shrug>

If your concern is about the survival of the planet due to coal emissions, may I suggest you go to China, the biggest emitter of CO2, and petition them to stop killing the world?
I am sure they will listen intently.
And then place you in a re-education camp.
If you are lucky.

Every year, China's *increase* of CO2 emissions equals the entire CO2 production of Australia in a year.
But please don't mention the "per-capita" amount.
Australia's contribution will never "sink the boat".
China's, on the other hand, will.



You seem to be missing the point again. <sigh>
He is talking about the cost to the consumer.

I am a consumer.
I live in Australia.
I don't think you do?

I am afraid that I haven't missed the point. As you know, I know a lot about this and wouldn't make that mistake. The LCOE is the cost that energy must be sold to consumers at in order for the development to break even.

I have already acknowledged that there are likely to be some differences in the Australian context. The most obvious one is that you have more hours of daylight, which makes solar more competitive. Your rural communities are more isolated, which again makes solar more competitive. Australia produces coal domestically rather than importing it, which helps reduce transport costs, but Australian coal is expensive which balances that out. There may be some policy barriers I am unfamiliar with, but those are not immutable facts. Can you suggest any other things I have not considered? It would be nice to learn something from you

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... Report.pdf

I had a quick scan through it. No mentions of battery infrastructure that I could find. They've calculated costs of solar and wind to the consumer by assuming the reliability problem will be solved by burning gas and diesel (OGCT and reciprocating engines). Might well be cheaper to the consumer but if you want to go clean...

You know I'm starting to believe that solar and wind is an evil conspiracy against clean energy.

The problem is that there is no source of 100% clean energy. True, solar relies on 'clean' sunlight, hydro relies on the 'clean' movement of water, and wind relies on the 'clean' movement of air. However, the manufacture and installation of the equipment necessary to generate electricity from air, sunlight and water produces its own pollution. Then again, once installed, the energy is 'clean' while it is being produced., which cannot be said for coal, gas, nuclear and oil sources.