[toomuchtodo]

1. This is excellent. It means we're well on our way to sustainable energy generation. Wind and solar are only going to get cheaper. Even without subsidies, there is no reason to ever build another coal or oil fired generation facility. Natural gas will stick around until utility scale batteries ramp up, to where peaking plants are too expensive compared to utility scale batteries.

2. Nuclear is dead. Very dead. Thorium. Fast breeder. Pebble bed. I don't care which you pick, no one is going to pour 10 years and $1-4 billion into a plant that won't be cost competitive when it turns up (maybe some governments, but you can't fix that; it'll just get mothballed).

3. Utility scale batteries are going to be needed to make up for solar and wind's capacity factor (availability). Tesla is going to clean up with its Gigafactory. Well done Elon. I hope Mars treats you well.

4. Any pollutants or negative externalities of both solar panel and battery production can be much better contained and managed than the output of a coal plant.

5. Cheaper renewables means even cheaper power available for the transition to electric vehicles.

6. First world demand for renewables will continue to drive down costs, allowing third world countries to piggyback off the cost savings. Remember how Africa leapfrogged with cell phones instead of land lines? Imagine battery packs and solar roofs in every home instead of traditional utilities. It's already feasible with current economics.

Did I cover everything? Anything missing?

[terryf]

You did miss two things - distribution networks and industrial customers. Those are the two problems that nobody seems to be solving yet.

Basically, high-voltage electricity is distributed with networks that are dumb and old. The generation and usage is very carefully balanced with heavy users and large producers, because the network does not have storage capacity. It also has very little tolerance for power imbalance, the frequency cutoffs in the old equipment running most of the network are rather severe (in high-voltage networks, frequency increases with more power being fed into the system).

There are already extremely severe network problems in Germany for example where quite a bit of power comes from solar and wind. (I worked as an embedded sw engineer doing software that controlled solar inverters for a while)

The problem with upgrading distribution network is of course the MASSIVE amounts capex needed to replace it.

The other problem is industrial consumers - an aluminium smelter requires a certain amount of power coming in 24/7 or the ovens will freeze and if they do, restart is basically impossible. There are many other factories with similar problems. Given the trend towards just-in-time production and shipping, the chain of events that leads to massive disruption in the global trade can start from a fairly small shutdown with large snowball effects.

I'm not trying to put down green power generation, just saying that getting the price down to reasonable level is just one part of the puzzle.

[crdoconnor]

>The problem with upgrading distribution network is of course the MASSIVE amounts capex needed to replace it.

No. This is primarily a political issue not a question of lack of resources, and the capex and difficulty required is, while high, typically overestimated by a large degree.

The main problem is that the networks are usually owned by monopoly utilities with interests in power generation. How much do you think they want to upgrade if the net result is more competition? Hell, they'd probably pay not to have to upgrade.

>There are already extremely severe network problems in Germany for example where quite a bit of power comes from solar and wind.

"Severe" would suggest blackouts or at least brownouts like California had in 2001.

>The other problem is industrial consumers - an aluminium smelter requires a certain amount of power coming in 24/7 or the ovens will freeze and if they do, restart is basically impossible.

If you must do something impossible, do it at least... twice :) ??

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-aluminum-firm-...

"Over the past 12 months, German aluminum giant Trimet has ramped down production twice on request from German grid operators."

Yes, they didn't shut it off entirely, but this demonstrates that smelters who can vary their electricity usage are actually part of the solution, not the problem.

(provided Germany didn't overpay them to ramp down that is... which they may well have)

[brrt]

> The main problem is that the networks are usually owned by monopoly utilities with interests in power generation. How much do you think they want to upgrade if the net result is more competition? Hell, they'd probably pay not to have to upgrade.

This... is exactly what is happening :-). Utilities and network operators are trying out ways to give incentives to customers who can respond with negative load (i.e. turning the power down). It makes economic sense because the alternative is increasing production at immense speeds, which is quite costly and inefficient (often using diesel generators, and a lot of them). Aluminium smelters like the examples you give (and quite a few other businesses) are doing precisely this.

Also note that an aluminium smelter works by electrolysis, not by pyrolysis (which is what GP seems to suggest?), which is why they use so much electricity and why they can in fact turn it on and off at a whim.

[raverbashing]

Yes, by electrolysis. Of molten minerals. This also consumes energy

"Alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite, typically at 960 °C"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting

[pif]

> an aluminium smelter requires a certain amount of power coming in 24/7

Absolutely! A key point regarding energy is that you must be able to plan its availability. Lacking major improvements in energy storage, it boils down to predictability for energy production. Unfortunately, solar and wind miss it.

[zamalek]

Regarding customers such as aluminum smelters: I wonder if nature could cope if we used fossil fuels for only them.

Another thing, while wind/solar might might be approaching the cost of fossil fuels I suspect the story may be different for developing countries. In South Africa we have power capacity problems and what was the decision? Build the biggest coal power plant in the southern hemisphere.

If we want to solve climate change developing countries are going to be a very severe problem. The people in charge have no interest in fore-sight.

[brrt]

Actually, yes. Global atmospheric CO2 concentrations will (probably) stabilize if we reduce output to about 5% of the current level, by outflow to the deep ocean (which is a vast reservoir). But that is still very difficult to reach, especially with business as usual.

[kaybe]

That gives us the 1000 years of ocean turnover. Is that enough?

[dagw]

The other problem is industrial consumers

Hydro and geothermal are 'green' solutions that can manage pretty constant power levels 24/7. Just make sure your factory is close to those type of power plants and you'll be fine.

[crdoconnor]

>Natural gas will stick around until utility scale batteries ramp up, to where peaking plants are too expensive compared to utility scale batteries.

There's another possibility which is that there will be an overbuild of solar and wind caused by a clean energy boom (ZIRP already did this to oil; where is that ROI-hungry risk capital going to look for returns next?).

The market will then figure out ways of putting the large irregular surpluses of electricity to use. For example, generating fuel as mentioned below, or running adjustable output aluminum smelting plants.

I think the opportunities opened up by periodic bouts of practically free electricity which have already started to occur have been vastly understated. People just look at the other side of the equation - probably because oil/utility companies have tried to keep us fixated upon it.

I think the most optimistic part of all of this, though, is the implications for democracy and peace. When the age of oil finally expires (and it is nearing a close) there won't be any way to put a chokehold on supplies of energy with raw military power.

This is probably the only thing, in fact, that could actually lead to lasting peace in the middle east, which has been plagued by the resource curse for a century or so.

[jnwrd]

Periodic bouts of practically free electricity make water desalination much more attractive.

Perhaps you even get a stabilizing mechanism where: drought ~ high solar output -> cheap electricity -> water desalination -> eliminates drought problems.

[toomuchtodo]

I have high hopes that practically free energy leads us to post scarcity.

[puranjay]

My parents live in a part of India where summer temperatures routinely hit 45C (113F). Because electricity is expensive and my parents' house is quite large, they couldn't afford to run air-conditioning for more than 8-10 hours a day - usually at night.

Whenever I would go home, the heat would completely wreck my productivity. I would have to sequester myself in the coolest room in the house, then judiciously use the air conditioning to maintain some semblance of sanity.

Then my dad got fed up and took advantage of a government subsidy to buy solar panels.

It was expensive initially, but now we essentially have free power. We'll break even in terms of costs within 4 years.

We now run air conditioning when we want, wherever we want.

The increase in productivity is massive. I no longer have to deal with heat when I go home.

Now imagine this happening for billions of people living in tropical climates.

It's going to change the contour of the world

[eru]

> We'll break even in terms of costs within 4 years.

That means a loan of up to 25% interest could have financed the solar panels. Are interest rates higher than that for your parents?

> The increase in productivity is massive. I no longer have to deal with heat when I go home. > Now imagine this happening for billions of people living in tropical climates

For what it's worth, the GDP per capita of Singapore used to track the introduction of air conditioning. Not sure what's cause and what's effect, or coincidence.

[PhantomGremlin]

practically free energy

We've heard that before, as far back as 1954: "too cheap to meter". The problem is, even if the incremental generation of electricity is practically free, there are still large costs in building the windmills and solar panels. And there are large distribution costs as well.

In addition, the more cheap energy there is, the more inefficiently people will use it. Why bother with things like Energy Star and LEED? Just build inefficient power supplies and poorly insulated buildings. After all, it is "practically free" to heat them and cool them.

Post scarcity energy is a non-starter. Consumption will always increase as necessary. Here's an even more crazy example: just how much bitcoin (or similar) mining would there be if energy were cheap? It's already a disgusting misuse of resources, it would be a lot worse!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter

[toomuchtodo]

You're free to your pessimism :) I've got another 50 years of life to be hopeful.

Enough sunlight falls on the Earth in 5 minutes to power the world for a year. That's effectively limitless.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Enough sunlight falls on the Earth in 5 minutes to power the world for a year.

At current levels, and that's the point of the parent comment.

> That's effectively limitless.

It's 0.0000095 or so. Impressive but not limitless. An earth in which all the infalling sunlight was used for power would be a dark place, which would be bad for people and for agriculture. And oxygen production. So actually lot less than that.

[task_queue]

Post scarcity isn't much of a boon to society if it is constrained in the hands of the few. Especially if power is derived from scarcity.

[jes5199]

A case could be made that we're already post-scarcity.

[toomuchtodo]

Close. We're very close. Renewables and electric transportation gets us very far. Automated farming and 3D printing or automated assembly of housing will be the last step.

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." -- William Gibson

[fsloth]

Totally offbeat angle, nothing to do with energy markets at large, but:

My whole country is situated north of the 60th parallel north. Winters are friggin cold and I would be very concerned if there were no sources of energy not dependent on sunlight or wind.

Also, I'm a neurotic so in case of a nuclear winter type of effect I would love to have some nuclear reactor technology going.

For deep space exploration solar panels don't work. It would be nice if we maintained active interest in power generation systems not dependent on sun or atmospheric movements.

[lgieron]

> Also, I'm a neurotic so in case of a nuclear winter type of effect I would love to have some nuclear reactor technology going.

My guess is that, in case of nuclear winter, the complex societal structures that make operating nuclear energy possible will break down anyway.

[JoeAltmaier]

A sealed Thorium reactor could continue for decades after societal breakdown!

[lgieron]

It would require no operations staff and no maintenance?

[JoeAltmaier]

Correct. Modern designs are buried in the ground, and maintenance-free for 20-30 years.

[rodgerd]

> First world demand for renewables will continue to drive down costs, allowing third world countries to piggyback off the cost savings. Remember how Africa leapfrogged with cell phones instead of land lines? Imagine battery packs and solar roofs in every home instead of traditional utilities. It's already feasible with current economics.

I think the real advantage in places like China, Tanzania, Kenya, etc, is they don't seem to have half of their political class entrenched in the idea that they need to crush renewables because of an unholy alliance of their business backers (the Kochs, Murdoch, etc) and the portion of the population who are apparently pro pollution because they hate hippies or something.

[jessaustin]

Natural gas will stick around until utility scale batteries ramp up...

Batteries have improved over time, but I'm not convinced that they'll see the vast improvements necessary in order for them to replace natural gas for a long time. If natural gas really must be replaced the most logical alternative might be ammonia.

Ammonia has hydrogen's good properties: not a greenhouse gas, doesn't cause smog, numerous production methods including electrolysis, easily transported in liquid form, can be used in fuel cells or in ICEs. However it doesn't embrittle, in liquid form it's actually denser in hydrogen atoms than liquid hydrogen is, and due to its agricultural applications there is already an established distribution infrastructure (in the Midwest, at least).

[toomuchtodo]

I bet you $1000 to a charity of your choice that utility scale batteries combined with renewables replace natural gas for electricity generation in the US in the next 10 years. I shall even assume all the risk. If I'm correct, you can buy me a coffee.

[jessaustin]

Hahaha well tentatively let's say EFF...

Rhetorical flourishes aside, I'd love for you to be right and I'm perfectly content to be convinced that you are. What specific technologies or materials will get batteries over this hump? Please don't say lithium-ion because although they seem OK for phones I can't seem to buy one for a power tool that will last a year.

[DannoHung]

Are physical potential energy storage systems completely impractical?

Flywheels, compressed air, gravity storage?

[afarrell]

Of those, I believe only gravity storage (at facilities like Blenheim-Gilboa) are currently in use.

[jerven]

Flywheels are as well. But at a much smaller scale than gravity storage.

[afarrell]

Oh I wasn't aware. Link?

[jerven]

http://beaconpower.com/operating-plants/ but there are others, some even quite old. More often selected for niche reasons than market peak load balancing. e.g. site one at long end line of insufficient frequency stability.

[cpprototypes]

There's possibly a better alternative to batteries:

http://www.audiusa.com/newsroom/news/press-releases/2015/05/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel

This type of technology can allow the extra power generated by solar/wind to be used to create oil. If this technology is developed further, I think it could be a better alternative to batteries. Imagine a desert full of solar panels creating oil with excess electricity during the day. And at night the oil can be used to either provide night time electricity or directly in the existing oil infrastructure (cars, gas stations, etc.) The oil would be effectively carbon neutral.

[schwabacher]

The benefit of creating oil like this is that it is energy dense, the downside is that it is hugely inefficient at every step compared to battery storage and burning it still produces air pollution.

[cpprototypes]

If cars and all the oil infrastructure didn't exist, EV and batteries are superior. They have far better efficiency and are a much more elegant solution. But all the oil infrastructure does exist and is a huge advantage for oil producing solutions. Consider asking a random person, would you rather keep your current car and use oil that has a side benefit of being carbon neutral or throw away the car, buy a brand new EV, and all the other associated costs (like upgrading the electric sockets in the garage). I think most would keep their car. And for someone living in an apartment without a personal garage, it's not even an option.

If we someday convert our deserts into massive solar energy farms, it may not even matter much that the oil technology is less efficient. There would be so much excess energy during daytime, the greater efficiency of EV wouldn't be a big advantage.

And gas engine technology itself isn't standing still. The traditional ICE engine efficiency of 25% is pathetic compared to the EV 80%. But the Prius combines both technologies and gets 40% thermal efficiency which is a big improvement. It's possible this could be increased further with more improvements in hybrid technology.

Many think that hybrids and plug-in hybrids are a bridge technology to a pure EV future. But the future may end up being a lot more similar to the present than expected. Maybe the typical car purchase in the future will be a 100 mpg hybrid with 60 mile plug-in battery range as an option. Those who have personal garages would buy the option, those who don't would not. And it would be all powered by massive solar power farms in the Mojave desert and wind farms in the mid-west. And the output from all this would be electricity and carbon neutral oil.

[trhway]

>But the Prius combines both technologies and gets 40% thermal efficiency

well, you can get an even better ICE with relatively simple improvements. In some sense there is just no business case for it as metal-air batteries would probably beat all the other options for passenger cars in near future.

>Many think that hybrids and plug-in hybrids are a bridge technology to a pure EV future. But the future may end up being a lot more similar to the present than expected. Maybe the typical car purchase in the future will be a 100 mpg hybrid with 60 mile plug-in battery range as an option.

kind of. Small personal cars will go EV (typical secondary and metal-air batteries). Starting with pickup trucks and into the big ones - will be hybrids with various plugin (probably with metal-air or similar) options.

[toomuchtodo]

> well, you can get an even better ICE with relatively simple improvements.

You really can't. Note the VW emissions scandal. We've already hit the wall regarding how much energy we can squeeze out of a unit of liquid fuel (most of the energy gets wasted as heat).

[trhway]

>We've already hit the wall regarding how much energy we can squeeze out of a unit of liquid fuel (most of the energy gets wasted as heat).

far from it. Just for example - the gas turbine reaches 50+% efficiency and in sequence hybrids there is no limitations which killed gas turbine car 50 years ago. Of course gas turbine is expensive, so we aren't going this way.

>Note the VW emissions scandal.

A BigCo stuck in old ways tells nothing about what is technologically possible. I'd say you can't do worse than current typical gas or diesel engine which basically hasn't changed for 100+ years :) Even well known Atkinson cycle was implemented en-mass only recently. Once i file my patents, i'll tell you in more details about other efficient designs and improvements :)

Without the efforts like CAFE and CA emission/efficiency requirements, we'd still be stuck with 20% efficient carburetor gas ICE. The increase of the regulatory pressure creates market opportunity for efficient designs, and you'll see what will come when CAFE hits 50mpg :)

[monochromatic]

> burning it still produces air pollution

Doesn't burning it just turn it back into what it was made from? You're not releasing any more carbon than you put into it.

[cpprototypes]

He is probably referring to other pollutants such as NOx. It is unavoidable to produce some amount of these pollutants in an oil combustion process. But California has shown that it's possible to get this down to a low level. Smog used to be really bad in LA. But a combination of catalytic converters, strict emissions testing, and oil refinery requirements to make cleaner burning gas has dramatically reduced smog. The oil refinery requirements make CA gas very expensive compared to the rest of the nation. But I think it's worth it for the air pollution improvements.

[thewopr]

Oxides of nitrogen, soot and various other pollutants come out of burning diesel, even if it's just carbon we pulled out of the air. It would be carbon neutral, but not pollution neutral.

[danieltillett]

You get other pollutants other than CO2 when you burn fuel in an internal combustion engine - things like NO2, NO as well as carbon particle, etc.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

This is an example of how the pollution debate has became ridiculously carbon-centric...

Yes, CO2 is what causes global warming, but other pollutants can cause acid rain and lung cancer among many other effects.

[AngrySkillzz]

There are also alternative storage solutions, like flywheel and pumped water storage. I don't know where those stand at the moment, but I imagine that a they are at least competitive with batteries, seeing as current batteries have fairly low storage capacity and need to be replaced regularly.

[toomuchtodo]

I excluded flywheels and pumped storage as they're rarely cost effective except in a few edge cases. Cargo containers full of batteries can be trucked or sent by ship anywhere necessary, and I expect them to get cheap very fast.

[gwright]

Understanding costs with and without subsidies is critical. I believe the current reports about renewables being cost-effective relative to fossil fuels includes subsidies but I couldn't find the raw data after a few minutes of googling. If so, just means the costs are being shifted -- and that renewables are still more expensive than coal/gas.

The big problem is that we still don't have effective ways to time-shift energy production. Solar and wind power sources will never replace base-load coal/gas plants until we can solve that problem. Battery technology doesn't solve this problem yet.

[toomuchtodo]

>Solar and wind power sources will never replace base-load coal/gas plants until we can solve that problem. Battery technology doesn't solve this problem yet.

It's already being done in Hawaii:

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/hawaii-co-op-solarcity-ink-d...

[gwright]

An interesting data point but:

From the article: > In the power industry, Hawaii is commonly considered a "test case" for new renewable energy technologies because its power prices — the highest in the nation — have made cutting-edge resources cost-effective on the islands before they reach that point on the mainland.

So not directly applicable, right now, in most other locations.

[deciplex]

Since we already basically ignore, in an economic sense, the externalities that come with burning fossil fuels, ignoring any subsidies associated with renewables is sort of fair game. Or at least, if you're going to insist on factoring in subsidies, you should also account for externalities.

[ElectronCharge]

"1. This is excellent. It means we're well on our way to sustainable energy generation. Wind and solar are only going to get cheaper. Even without subsidies, there is no reason to ever build another coal or oil fired generation facility. Natural gas will stick around until utility scale batteries ramp up, to where peaking plants are too expensive compared to utility scale batteries."

Wind/solar + batteries will never cover everything, because statistically there will be an event that the (very finite) capacity can't meet - then people will die, either freezing or overheating.

"2. Nuclear is dead. Very dead. Thorium. Fast breeder. Pebble bed. I don't care which you pick, no one is going to pour 10 years and $1-4 billion into a plant that won't be cost competitive when it turns up (maybe some governments, but you can't fix that; it'll just get mothballed)."

You're very wrong here. China in particular is investing heavily in nuclear going forward, including thorium. There are a number of companies here in the US, such as Flibe Energy and Thorcon that are working hard on next-gen nuclear solutions.

Nuclear is actually more environmentally friendly than wind, as it doesn't decimate bird and bat populations, has a much smaller land use footprint, and doesn't cause widespread noise pollution. It also has the additional attributes of reliability and low cost. The inherently safe next-gen nuclear technologies will come in at less than 5 cents per KWH, perhaps as low as half that.

On a level playing field, wind in particular can't compete. Eventually solar may, given enough technological breakthroughs.

[toomuchtodo]

Do you have data? Because there is enough wind potential alone in the US to satisfy the US power requirements 10x over.

http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/05/f22/Enabling%20Wi...

> You're very wrong here. China in particular is investing heavily in nuclear going forward, including thorium. There are a number of companies here in the US, such as Flibe Energy and Thorcon that are working hard on next-gen nuclear solutions.

While China continues to build a handful of nuclear plants, their wind generation capacity is already far ahead of what they're producing from nuclear:

http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights5...

> On a level playing field, wind in particular can't compete.

Wind is already cheaper than nuclear without subsidies in the USA and the UK. It also kills less birds and bats than buildings, cell towers, and cats.

http://www.ewea.org/blog/2013/03/us-wind-energy-is-now-more-...

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/04/wind-solar-substantially...

You mention next-gen nuclear tech will come in at 5 cents/kwh. Utility solar is already below 4 cents/kwh:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/cheapest-solar-e...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/buffett-sc...

[ElectronCharge]

"Do you have data? Because there is enough wind potential alone in the US to satisfy the US power requirements 10x over."

When it is blowing, possibly. However it requires backup power for those inconvenient times when there is no (or little) wind. The cost of backup plants is one of the hidden costs of wind.

"While China continues to build a handful of nuclear plants, their wind generation capacity is already far ahead of what they're producing from nuclear"

China is planning on 400-500 GW of nuclear electric production by 2050. That will likely dwarf the real output of its wind farms.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/why-china-will-go-all-in-on-n...

"Wind is already cheaper than nuclear without subsidies in the USA and the UK. It also kills less birds and bats than buildings, cell towers, and cats."

Wind might be cheaper in the very best siting areas. The long-term durability of the generators remains to be seen.

Regardless, the affordability and effectiveness of wind has long been exaggerated by advocates. Here is a more balanced treatment:

http://www.strata.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Full-Report...

The report's conclusion:

'The true cost of wind energy is higher than most cost estimates calculate. Mandates requiring the use of wind energy increase electricity costs for consumers, and subsidies mask the actual cost of doing so. RPS require intermittent renewable energy to exist, but at the expense of utilities and consumers. The PTC makes wind power cheaper for utilities and consumers, but at the expense of taxpayers.

Through such policies, U.S. policymakers have essentially decided that electricity consumers will have wind power, even if it is more expensive. The cost of this decision has fallen to U.S. taxpayers and consumers of electricity. When weighing the costs and benefits of wind power, not including all of the hidden costs makes wind power appear to be a more attractive option than it actually is. Energy policy decisions, however, should be based on a more complete estimate of the cost of wind energy.'

"You mention next-gen nuclear tech will come in at 5 cents/kwh. Utility solar is already below 4 cents/kwh"

That is heavily subsidized, and also in the very best siting environment. Obviously those installations produce nothing at night, and even during the day average well under their peak output.

Solar is in no way a replacement for reliable, 24/7 nuclear generation.

[timv]

> Did I cover everything? Anything missing?

There's interesting issues to consider with respect to scale + locality in generation/storage.

My father-in-law's partner has a property in a rural area. Their property runs on 100% solar. The surrounding area has no local (large scale) power generation. During a recent storm the whole town was knocked off the grid. The property with solar kept working (after the storm, not during) while town was without power for days.

It's pretty rare to invest in small scale, local fossil fuel power generation. Small communities have to rely on the grid. But small scale renewable is feasible. There are cost benefits to larger systems, but those benefits need to be weighed up against the risk mitigation of having local systems.

The opposite side to that is that often the best places to run renewable generation is in remote areas and cities may be dependent on larger scale grids. (not that too many people want a fossil fuel plant operating in their city)

I expect that storage system (utility scale batteries) will shift the proposition again. Maybe your rural community doesn't its own generation, just the ability to store enough power to survive a grid failure for a few days.

[ams6110]

It's pretty rare to invest in small scale, local fossil fuel power generation.

I think you're ignoring the diesel or natural gas fueled generators that are now installed at most supermarkets, many office buildings, and even apartment buildings and private homes. They are everywhere these days; even 10 years ago you didn't see them as much.

[toomuchtodo]

I think you misunderstand OP. You're confusion backup generation (what you mentioned) with full time petroleum generation. Small towns aren't running their own coal plants, and the only geographic region I'm aware of running petroleum generation is Hawaii, which is why their power is so expensive, and they're moving to solar and utility scale battery storage at breakneck speeds.

[mistermann]

I'm wondering, when they say prices are now near parity, is that pure prices, or does it still consider the "cost of externalities" factor?

Also, does it factor in the necessary costs for peak load and low production (cloudy / no wind)?

I actually don't think life would be that bad if society had to self-limit consumption during these times, but what are the real facts on these two items?

[crdoconnor]

>I'm wondering, when they say prices are now near parity, is that pure prices, or does it still consider the "cost of externalities" factor?

I think it just counts externalities that are already priced in via taxes/subsidies.

It's not really possible to price global warming or clean air anyway.

Plus, remember the story about primary school parents who were fined for being late to pick up their kids?

The effect of trying to price global warming or clean air is harmful in and of itself. We shouldn't be trying to accurately assess the cost of destroying our environment to determine the exact tax to levy on the fossil fuel companies. We should be taxing them into oblivion now that we have alternatives.

[eru]

Corporations may be people, but they are not humans. The Kindergarten late pick up pricing doesn't apply.

[crdoconnor]

Fossil fuel corporations will fight for their existence and profits from energy scarcity until their last gasp of tainted air. It won't affect their behavior at all.

It does apply to policymakers, however, who are very much human, and who place altogether too much faith in the idiotic models created by economists as it is.

[mistermann]

So just to be clear, we still do not know from what is included in this cost comparison, correct?

[cinquemb]

There's also CSP[0] which has taken off recently in the past 5 years (fastest growing[1] segment at ~4GW total vs ~177GW for PV) which is overshadowed by most compared to PV mind-share, but is better suited for projects that require more energy/load requirements.

I also can see CSP being more attractive to locales with existing grids and who can probably attract financing easier for a +100 MW plant to one institution vs 100k+ people having to be sold on such to install PV on their house/property. There's definitely a market for both and they will all chip away at fossil fuels rapidly coming from different sides of the market for energy.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

[1]: http://www.examiner.com/article/market-growth-for-pv-solar-v...

[PhantomGremlin]

The problem with CSP compared to PV is all the moving parts. You need something like molten salts, coupled with a conventional turbine and generator. PV can be purely solid state, a thing of beauty IMO compared to mechanical "contraptions".

[cinquemb]

That's less of a problem, and more of a feature, because those molten salts enable CSP to provide more power for up to 16 hours[0] sans sunlight which is important if you need dispatchability, which is not really comparable to PV's which cannot offer the same now, hence why CSP is not killed off by PV's and has continued to grow along with PV's.

You also have to consider that people who live in apartments or rent a house in developed markets are pretty much either locked out of the market for PV's or not incentivized to pay out of pocket (even considering the subsidies/financing that exist [looking at you Solar City]) for such systems. I'd say that share of the population is far larger than people with a mortgage/own a home and are interested in such systems.

This embodies the situation: "Does this mean CSP will eventually disappear, trampled by PV? Not necessarily. CSP has one major advantage over PV: dispatchability. Current CSP plants can store thermal energy for up to 16 hours, which means that their production profile can match the demand profile (just like a conventional power plant). PV is not dispatchable, as a feasible commercial energy storage system does not yet exist. Dispatchability will be increasingly important when and where renewable energies achieve high penetration rates, so two things can happen: CSP becomes a commercially viable solution before a commercial PV storage system is developed, carving its own market segment; or the PV industry quickly solves the storage issue and becomes the solar technology of choice."[0]

[0]: http://thisisxy.com/blog/cannibalization-in-renewable-energi...

[PhantomGremlin]

I agree with you, in theory.

Practically speaking there hasn't been a lot of large scale CSP done, and e.g. Ivanpah[1] has a lot of limitations and teething problems. It has no energy storage, and it needs to use natural gas for 4.5 hours each day during startup.

As for your assertion that CSP has continued to grow, the one data point I linked to claims "little appetite" from California utilities for power from plants like that.

One thing can probably both agree on is that CSP is a "go big or go home" technology. It's not suited for small scale deployments. Which makes it quite complementary to rooftop PV.

[1] http://breakingenergy.com/2014/10/29/at-ivanpah-solar-power-...

[cinquemb]

> "Practically speaking there hasn't been a lot of large scale CSP done…"

Maybe not in the United States, but it has taken off in Spain (looking at Wikipedia I cited earlier, which is probably better suited to take advantage of it in theory since installations are near population centers). I see far more interest oversees than in the United States… which is not surprising considering all the entrenched players that simply don't have the influence to the same degree in other places.

I can agree with this statement to some degree: "It's not suited for small scale deployments. Which makes it quite complementary to rooftop PV.", but seeing how it's serving a need that PV has not been able to provide to date despite it all, I'd hardly say its "go big or go home", there's far more abundant sodium and potassium available in the earth's crust vs lithium.

[x3al]

Nuclear energy isn't going to die and it's still much cheaper than wind/solar energy while being much more green as well.

[toomuchtodo]

Proof? Citations? Because wind is already cheaper than nuclear (and solar will be in the next 2-3 years), and no one will invest in nuclear plants if they won't be profitable in 10 years (which they won't be).

[x3al]

Only onshore wind power is cheaper and it still costs about the same. Offshore wind power is about twice as expensive. Can you show your sources to solar power prices analysis since at this moment LCOE by Energy Information Administration doesn't predict the solar power prices to drop below nuclear power price by 2020?

[rcraft]

Have you ever looked into the negative environmental impacts of lithium mining and disposal?

Elon's battery tech has serious negative environmental impacts yet the majority of people think its perfectly green because the media hasn't yet vilified this industry like they have fossil fuels.

[toomuchtodo]

> Have you ever looked into the negative environmental impacts of lithium mining and disposal?

I have. Lithium is mined from a brine on the surface, versus strip mining. Its neutral from an environmental impact perspective. Lithium batteries are almost fully recyclable except for the insulation (which is currently landfilled).

> Elon's battery tech has serious negative environmental impacts

Citation?

[scythe]

7. Compressed air energy storage can't get here fast enough.

Batteries are great, but they have to be replaced. Tanks can last for centuries and the materials are way cheaper at scale (CAES makes no sense below the MWh scale).

[noselfrighteous]

I was thinking about this the other day, what's the loss factor in compressed air storage?

[ars]

Quite high. When you compress air it heats up and that energy is lost.

When you expand it it gets very cold and you lose pressure (you can wait a bit for the air to warm it up to regain some of what was lost).

[JupiterMoon]

Could one store the excess heat from the compression and use this to heat the de-compressed air later?

[ars]

It's not easy to store heat. If it was possible (practical) you could skip the compressed air and just store the heat directly and use it for energy.

The whole reason for the complicated schemes is because it's hard to store heat.

[thaumasiotes]

> Even without subsidies, there is no reason to ever build another coal or oil fired generation facility.

You seem to be assuming that world demand for power can never rise. I find that... unlikely.

[toomuchtodo]

The IEA indicates that world demand for power will rise, but at a much slower pace than historically due to the level of efficiencies we're realizing due to technology:

http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/weo2014sum.pdf

[venomsnake]

> 6. First world demand for renewables will continue to drive down costs, allowing third world countries to piggyback off the cost savings. Remember how Africa leapfrogged with cell phones instead of land lines? Imagine battery packs and solar roofs in every home instead of traditional utilities. It's already feasible with current economics.

Wired internet kicks wireless' ass everytime. So having land infrastructure is critical. That leapfrogging could bite them in the ass, if they have to gig now to lay down cables.