Green Energy Almost Cost-Competitive with Fossil Fuels 843
js7a writes "As reported in the Houston Chronicle, the sharply rising cost of natural gas and other fossil fuels has caused the cost of renewable energy to finally reach the price of nonrenewables. However, wind still has some catching up to do: 'a 10 percent wind- and 90 percent water-generated mix is about $9 per month less expensive than the 100 percent wind plan.' As more wind generation and grid transmission capacity is built, wind will eventually become more competitive than hydroelectric, but hydro and other sources will be required to balance grid demand in calm areas. Slashdot has been following this trend."
Not exactly "green" yet (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not saying wind power isn't advantageous; it is renewable. But it's unsightly, can be costly (suitable areas for wind farms are often near the coast, where land is expensive), and is noisy. There's some research to complete, some work to do, before this technology becomes "green" IMO.
Which means (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Fossil fuels have huge investment, economies of scale and infrastructure already, which bring prices down. As sustainable energy gets more popular, it will get even cheaper.
2) Nobody ever factors in the cost of cleanup (at best) or total extinction (at worst) into the cost of fossil fuels. If you add the cost of removing the byproducts and side-effects to each column, sustainable energy pulls way ahead.
Not that I expect the current administration to do anything about it.
why? (Score:2, Insightful)
wind power is ugly (Score:2, Insightful)
Here it comes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad to see research continuing into alternatives. Just because something isn't 100% ready yet is no reason not to pursue it. Just think what weaning the U.S. off oil-dependence (yes, long term thinking here, try not to let your hat fly off your head) would do for its world politics. Whoops. Never mind. This is a message from the oil companies reminding you not to think that way. We now return you to your reality-based TV program.
Re:why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not exactly "green" yet (Score:1, Insightful)
Whereas large concrete and brick fossil and nuclear processing plants, belching their smoke and steam into the air are a joy to behold. And the former's polution fills my lungs with a spring freshness.
Re:Economist/scientific predictions become truth! (Score:5, Insightful)
That might be a good theory if the aim was to start using renewable energy as quickly as possible. However, that is not the main objective. Environmentalists want to transfer to green energy before we pump too much more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Using all of the oil reserves over many millenia may be sustainable. Releasing all of that carbon in one quick burst most certainly is not. Dynamic systems usually respond better to gradual sustained inputs than to large magnitude step changes. The climate is no exception.
damage (Score:5, Insightful)
The best immediate solution is frequently ignored (Score:2, Insightful)
A real alternative has always been available which can be produced by existing oil-refining equipment and which is capable of powering existing electric generators and sub-generators as well as existing gasoline and diesel engines without modification. That alternative is called biomass.
Pyrolysis, the process of destructive distillation by which crude oil is transformed into usable fuels, is also the process by which fresh plant cellulose--biomass--is converted into charcoal, gasoline, fuel oils such as diesel, and natural gas. By using fresh plant matter instead of ancient plant matter, you establish what is called a 'closed carbon cycle,' in which no new carbon dioxide is being added to the atmosphere.
The most prolific, and also the most sustainable, producer of usable biomass is the industrial hemp plant. It requires no pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, or fertilizer. Its strong, deep roots quickly break up the soil and choke out weeds, and its 3-4 month growing cycle and year-round growing season make it an ideal rotation crop. It also has no mind-altering properties.
For these reasons, several states and numerous agricultural and industrial associations have already petitioned the DEA to issue the hemp farming licenses that it has the authority to issue. In fact, the DEA has already issued pitifully small, ridiculously regulated hemp farming licenses in Hawaii for the purposes of study. The Canadian government--which put an end to hemp farming around the same time our own government did--has recently (1990s) reallowed hemp farming and has experienced no regulatory difficulties.
I therefore recommend that the United States Federal Government mandate that the DEA license and regulate sufficient acreage of hemp farming for the purposes of full biomass fuel production. Additionally, in order that the free market be further stimulated, I recommend that all federal fossil fuel-related subsidies be moved to biomass fuels, and that tax disincentives be enacted on all fossil fuel-related industry.
Thank you, come again.
insightful ?!?!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this insighful? Burn all the fossil fuels we can. Lets liberate every bit of green house gas that we can. Lets melt the polar caps and de salinate the oceans and stop the deep ocean currents. Running out of fuel isn't the problem, the problem is the effects of those fuels on our environment.
Re:Not exactly "green" yet (Score:1, Insightful)
I asuume that you do not drive a car or live anywhere near a road, because cars produce hundreds of times more lung defreshener than your local generating plant.
Course, this is just slashdot, no need to waste any brain cells by thinging of anything rational to say here...
Re:Not exactly "green" yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Proving once and for all that nothing is perfect. Man has been altering ecosystems ever since we noticed we could eat the moving things, too.
If windmills kill birds in California so people can live longer in Arizona, I don't see the difficulty. The danger to birds is nothing like the danger to salmon from damming spawning streams, or even to miners from breathing coal dust.
I think you need to adjust your perspective a bit. People are more important than birds. Mechanical hazards like a big moving fan blade are much more environmentally friendly than belching smokestacks, or even than whitewater rapids turned into reservoirs.
Re:why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear energy isn't perfect, but it's a far more viable alternative to fossil fuels than what Greens want to throw money at.
Not really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Generally, windmills are a way to make the land do something extra, rather than less than it is capable of.
Of course, there's always the offshore farms, too-- and that's even better. The plans for the farm off the coast of new york puts them far enough out you can't see them from land. They're gigantic, so complaints about "hazards to navigation" fall a little flat-- if the boat's captain can't avoid a ginormous windmill, how does he expect to navigate around invisible sandbars and shallow areas?
All that said, I'd love to see working fusion, too, and have nothing against well-run fission plants-- but why not put windmills on farmland or desert? Or even housing editions in the suburbs? The space is there, and adding windmills to the average middle-of-nowhere midwestern farm does very little to its farming output.
Re:I saw a small documentary the other day (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Which means (Score:3, Insightful)
why so extreme on both sides? (Score:5, Insightful)
I love nuclear power. But I don't see why nuke plants should keep us from putting solar shingles on our rooftops-- so what if they only make 50% of the power you need, and only during the day? It's just that much less load on the nuke plants. At the very least, it would soften the peak load from my air conditioner in the summer daytime.
And why not stick a few windmills in the middle of farmland? Indiana farmland is like a giant, flat, patchwork quilt. It's not the sort of grand scenery you'd mind a windmill in the middle of, and you can farm around the poles just fine.
Why can't anybody take a moderate, practical look at things and realize that both solutions *together* are our most likely bet to get out of the coal and oil dependency?
Nobody's going to survive on windmills alone just yet. But why not use them where it's practical?
Re:Not exactly "green" yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Please rate the sightliness and sound volume of the following energy-related facilities:
(a) Strip Mine
(b) Oil Spill
(c) Nuclear Waste Disposal facility
(d) coal-fired power plant
(e) Hydropower reservoir
Re:Not exactly "green" yet (Score:3, Insightful)
So are birds. ;)
Re:Economist/scientific predictions become truth! (Score:1, Insightful)
I've lost count of how many greenies I've driven insane by telling them that letting people use all the oil they can get their hands on is a good thing, in that it will drive people to use alternatives sooner due to supply/demand curves.
They are probably being driven insane by your idiocy.
Why do you think "greenies" want people to switch to alternatives? For the sake of it? Of course not. They want people to switch because using oil is harmful. So suggesting that we increase the harm is just plain stupid, isn't it?
Re:Economist/scientific predictions become truth! (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a lot that can be done in the US, Japanese and British people consume about 45% less energy than American people, per capita. Should the cost of energy suddenly go up, as I would expect, particularly for political reasons, they will be much less hard hit than we are.
Re:Not exactly "green" yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Hydro is NOT AT ALL green (Score:2, Insightful)
"Cost Competitive" is a misnomer (Score:5, Insightful)
The cost of wind energy:
Buy land in windy place
Build windfarm.
The cost of oil:
Forge alliance with dictators, oppressors, torturers and terrorists.
Provide covert funding and weapons to people who will later bite you in the ass, for example: Osama bin Laden, Sadam Hussen, the shah of Iran, the Taliban, etc. etc.
Station tens of thousands of troups in 3rd world countries full of extremists who get off on killing Americans... during PEACETIME.
During war station hundreds of thousands of troops in said countries.
Fight on average 1 major war per decade at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars to protect oil producing hellspawn from non-oil-producing hellspawn.
Raise Taxes (Score:3, Insightful)
Gasoline should have an additional $0.50 per gallon tax and traditional lightbulbs should have an $0.10 per bulb tax.
The funds from this should directly fund research into alternative energy, means of conservation, and entirely new technologies.
I've heard that if every household in America installed only 1 compact florescent in place of a standard bulb, it would be the environmental equivelant of taking 1,000,000 cars off the road.
The only way America is going to change is if it's given an economic reason that hits home.
Subsidized (Score:4, Insightful)
Fossil fuels are *far* more expensive than the market price would indicate.
Re:"Cost Competitive" is a misnomer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Economist/scientific predictions become truth! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing has been proven yet. Do you have any idea what it's going to take to make such a shift? We either need to have several years left of relatively cheap fossil fuels, minimum, or we should have started this shift years ago. This is not as simple as *poof* we're using green energy now because a price per kilowatt hit a magic number. Green energy isn't even ready to take over yet, nevermind the economics involved with the infrastructure shift.
We're in for a ride my friend. I don't know what industry you're in, but I've seen my manufacturers raise prices 2-4 times this year and our shipping costs are quickly climbing as well. There is a lag between rising energy and rising everything else, and we're just starting to get the effects of the first jump in price. I'm scared of what's going to happen *next year*, and there is no way green power is taking over that fast.
We're not necessarily doomed, but glibly saying "hey, keep using oil" shows a complete lack of respect for the factors at work here. We could very well be in big trouble here because we haven't been diligently working to prepare for a switch from a fossil-fueled economy. We certainly should be NOW, and we still are not. It's starting, but I seriously see it as too little, too late at this point. The math just isn't working out anymore, not with China and India in developement booms.
Re:Which means (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention the expense of war and other actions taken in the oil-producing nations. When you factor in the wars, support of favorable governments, destablizing unfavorable governments, fighting insurgants, or pissing off people enough so they run to the waiting arms of Osama bin Laden; oil becomes very, very expensive.
If the oil magically disappeared from the Middle East, the US and western military would not be there.
Tower Ugliness OverRated (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about solar farms in the south west (Score:4, Insightful)
Both are overhyped (Score:2, Insightful)
And hydroelectric energy is hardly good for the environment either. Anything downstream from where the dam is built will be forever changed, and rarely for the better.
Its silly to invest in alternate energy supplies just for the sake of doing something different. Often the environment is worse of for it.
Re:"Cost Competitive" is a misnomer (Score:1, Insightful)
They've always hated our stance on Israel.
They've always hated our foreign policy.
If we didn't need their oil we could probably have sensible policy, although Israel is a though issue for politicians who get a lot of money from people who want us to defend Israel.
If the world could just be agnostic and not have such organized religion it could all be a lot better too.
Amnesia (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, they have always hated us, get over it
Maybe you just don't study history, but have you ever heard of the Crusades? Follow that by the betrayal following WWI where France and England carved up the middle east from the old Ottoman Empire rather than putting them in charge of their own land. Then follow that up with the US forcing dictatatorial rule on them from the Shah of Iran (you know we overthrew a democracy to put him in charge, right?), the Saudi royal family, massive support to Saddam from Reagan, etc., etc., etc.
It make you wonder why they hate us doesn't it?
Or maybe history just isn't patriotic enough for you.
Re:"Cost Competitive" is a misnomer (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be convenient if that were true, but for a long time they didn't think about us ("us" meaning the USA in this case) at all, because we weren't involved in their regional politics. And even if they had hated us, they had no resources to do anything about it, because they weren't sitting on top of a mountain of money that we gave them in return for supplying us with our nation's drug of choice.
Before complaining about the liberals, you should consider how many of your own positions are actually based on facts, and how many are just ignorant post-hoc rationalizations of the status quo.
Re:Highway Dividers (Score:2, Insightful)
Now - you add resistance to that air (the little wind blades) and guess what?
The cars now have to work harder to push the air and as a result - get lower fuel economy.
No free lunch there either.
Re:Which means (Score:4, Insightful)
Wars are pretty expensive things, even when you don't factor in things like suspension of civil liberties, or loss of life. But these costs aren't factored in at the pump. Free Market my Fucking Ass.
Re:Free Energy! (Score:2, Insightful)
Great criticism from someone who knows absolutely nothing about me. For all you know I could be the head of Greenpeace.
You know what the problem is? People on slashdot pounding out crazy starry-eyed ideas about zero-point energy, and how we should all be doing vastly impractical things that waste huge ammounts of our time and money, so that there is one ounce less (perfectly safe) scrap metal being thrown away.
As a matter of fact, handing off old appliances to waste management facilities will result in it being properly handled, and recycled into something better, more effecient, etc. The question of price is a big one... If it costs 10Xs more to get an appliance that is slightly more effecient, then you're worse off getting it, because the time you've spent working to get that money is probably producing more pollution than you'd save.
If you want to go out and lobby for legislation that requires all manufacturers to provide service documentation, that would be very productive... Posting on slashdot that people should keep using their old refridgerators is NOT useful in the slightest, and is quite environmentally unfriendly.
(yes, I realize the AC is not the OP, just making a point)
What the Greens and Engineers just don't get. (Score:2, Insightful)
Wind is as cheap as fossil fuels? (Score:2, Insightful)
hydro and 10% wind mix. It doesn't say
pure wind is cheaper.
If hydro weren't competitive, then humans
wouldn't have been building hydro-electric plants
for the past 100 years or so (and fossil fuels
used to be really cheap before the 1970s).
The only problem with hydro is that there's
not enough of it, or at least not enough of
it that isn't tied up by environmental
concerns (fish gotta live too), or indigenous
people claims such as in Quebec. If there
was enough of it, then don't you think all
power plants would hydro and not fuel burners?
Nothing new to see here.