Brookings Study Calls Solar, Wind Power the Most Expensive Fossil Alternatives 409
turkeydance (1266624) writes A new study [PDF] from the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, argues that using solar and wind energy may be the most expensive alternatives to carbon-based electricity generation, even though they require no expenditures for fuel.....Specifically, this means nuclear power offers a savings of more than $400,000 worth of carbon emissions per megawatt of capacity. Solar saves only $69,000 and wind saves $107,000. An anonymous reader points out that the Rocky Mountain Institute finds the Brookings study flawed in several ways, and offers a rebuttal.
Re:This probably ignores cost of decommissioning (Score:4, Informative)
If you read the article and linked information, you'd know they included decommissioning costs, plus costs related to accidents and insurance costs. Also, many nuclear power stations have been fully decommissioned. A surprising number of them are now greenfield sites in the US.
Re:And when you include end-of-life costs? (Score:2, Informative)
Decommissioning costs (including storage, disposal, and demolition) never seem to figure into these numbers.
All of which are difficult and expensive due to protests and alarmist by the anti-nuclear crowd.
We could have a very safe waste disposal facility: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y... [wikipedia.org]
If you care about the earth, climate change and CO2 emissions, you need to give up this hippie mother earth nonsense. Wind and Solar do not work yet. Given some time, sure, I'm sure we'll figure something out. But if you want to get off coal, Nuclear is the only option that's ready to go right now.
We should end all production of new coal and natural gas fired power plants as well as hydroelectric due to their impact on the environment. New plants should be modern nuclear plants. I don't like subsidies but if you really want the government to be involved in research, there should be a surcharge of power of 10% or so that goes directly into carbon neutral research like Fusion.
Politicians, like Al Gore, need to stay the hell out of the topic all together. Politicizing this was about the worst thing that could have happened.
Re:Define:expensive (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is, your "assuming" is a pure fantasy.
You cannot generate 100% of your power with wind/hydro/geothermal/solar.
Wind is out because the wind doesn't always blow or blow in the proper direction or blow at the proper speed ratings for a wind farm to take advantage of.
Solar is out because the sun isn't always shining overhead. Not to mention it's affected by weather/climate conditions as well (panels buried under a foot of snow don't function well, if at all).
Hydro is out because we're already tapped about 99% of the viable hydro in this country. And the environmentalists are wrangling amongst themselves because hydro destroys the local ecology. Pretty much guaranteeing that any remaining possible sources of hydro are NOT going to be exploited.
Geothermal's out because there's a limited number of places you can actually, viably put these. And there is documented ecological damage from existing geothermal installations. Not to mention the fact that you get hydrogen sulfide and, oh yeah, CARBON DIOXIDE emissions from geothermal. Also, geothermal has water consumption issues. Not to mention the fact that there's good evidence that, since you have to site geothermal on geologically active sites, geothermal leads to increases in earthquake frequency/severity.
Re:Oddly nobody factors in risk and after costs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Funny money (Score:5, Informative)
"$400,000 worth of carbon emissions", it says. What, monopoly money?
There are carbon emission markets that put a real price on CO2 emissions. These are currently priced under $10 / tonne. But this study used a value of $50 / tonne, without any justification, other than making their conclusions look more impressive.
Re:Finally!! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm installing solar this month.
The ROI calculators show a first year 7% ROI (of course, this will increase as electricity prices increase).
It's hard to find another investment which will give me 7% return on my investment and where the return will increase by 3-5% per year for the next 25 years.
This is a no-brainer.
Re: This probably ignores cost of decommissioning (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, they also factor in fuel disposal costs.
It's on pg. 14 if you're interested.
Re:Using old data (Score:4, Informative)
This has been debunked already (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Finally!! (Score:5, Informative)
I have to look at both while-running max load and have to consider startup demand. Breakers for individual circuits are supposed to be sized for startup demand (though apparently there's a tiny bit of room for fudge here, with slower-acting breakers so that a peak draw at startup could theoretically exceed a breaker rating for a very short time without either tripping the breaker or being especially dangerous) but by and large, that's what I have to do. I can rule-of-thumb the breakers for the 240V devices to figure out approximate max startup demand if everything kicked on at the same time.
If I add up the startup demand for the three HVAC units, the two hot water heaters, and probably 20A for all of the various residential 120V circuits for lighting and devices, I'm well over the 50A of a solar system, and I expect that with all of that running at the same time I'm probably over 50A there as well. That's the biggest concern, and I know that I've had all three HVAC units running at the same time before. The air compressor doesn't run very often, but it also draws 30A while it does.
We're probably going to put a couple inches of foam insulation on the outside of the house and have it stuccoed, and we're going to change the windows. Unfortunately there are a lot of windows to change, and it'll be close to five figures to change them all.
Re:Not convinced. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Funny money (Score:5, Informative)
The cost of solar dropped 20% in the last couple years, and is expected to drop quite a bit more, due to both technological and manufacturing improvements.
FYI - the biggest reason for the price drop wasn't economies of scale, but because China flooded the unholy fuck out of the solar market [washingtonpost.com], in a bid to dominate it since manufacturing solar panels isn't all that technically complex (at least not when compared to most other things).
It used to cost around $3/Wp, and China's backing of SunPower, SunTech and similar ventures glutted the price down to ~$0.90/Wp; however, last I checked a couple of years ago (I used to work for SolarWorld) it still cost around $1.25/Wp to manufacture a 250W panel, and that's not counting margins slimmer than even a PC OEM enjoys.
Re:Funny money (Score:5, Informative)
It is a process called dumping and China has been hit with tarrifs because of it by the EU. The US is investigating also.
In case you didn't know, dumping is where you sell a product in a particular market below costs usually with the intent of harming the players already in that market.
No, it is a claim that has been made, investigated, and punished in some areas in Europe over a year ago [theguardian.com] and recently in the US.
The problem is their prices to not cover their costs. If a normal company did that, they would become bankrupt and fail into historical reference. When the Chinese companies do this, they are being supported by the Chinese government and as long as their government is willing to funnel money into them, they can sell cheaper than anyone can acquire the raw materials for- let alone produce and sell something from it.
Externalization (Score:4, Informative)
Talk about a skewed, worthless study from Brookings. Garbage in, garbage out.
As Amory Lovins ably pointed out, its data is old. It also does not consider the entire cost of production, usage and cleanup. Cleanup costs count too! Are West Virginia, Ohio, British Columbia, Alberta, the Niger River basin, or Ecuador's rainforests, or the Gulf of Mexico just not in Charles Frank's back yard? I guess not. Screw people for living there, then. Do not the geopolitical considerations of an aggressive military foreign policy required to keep the oil flowing not count too? Screw those GIs and the people who live where they're sent in oil wars, too. Exxon's got to make a buck.
That's what externalization is. It means omitting key and pertinent parts of the picture and just sticking it to whomever is dealing with the consequences.
Solar panels are rapidly getting more efficient and cheaper to make, and you can put them directly on site where they're needed so you don't have to lose electricity to resistance across a far-flung grid with its necessary redundancies and overproduction, which are required in the event that a powerstation needs a maintenance cycle.
Someone's just keen to keep a bloody monopoly.