Nuclear Power Balls

[Sig]

no process is 100% efficiency, li-ion is maybe 90% charge/discharge efficiency, transmission losses another 5%


I am actually interested as am formulating a business along the lines and last numbers I crunched, solar with storage was nowhere near close to shale gas powered plants. I'd love to read some sources as I considered solar but battery storage was the sticking point. Not to mention Donnie's tariffs on Chinese panels

Mind you, I may have been pricing consuming from the grid vs going solar & was discounting the cost of gas infrastructure

The scale economy is pretty big on this, so it's very possible that a 25 kW solar plus storage system wouldn't even come close to $40/MWH while a 100 MW and up system would. Xcel was able to attract a number of bids at that price (https://www.greentechmedia.com/arti...solar-plus-storage-price-in-xcel-solicitation) and those are third party arms-lengths transactions, so they're pretty legit barring all those firms grossly underbidding. NextEra was able to get $45/MW a few months before that in Tucson, and there's a number of other rfps in the past 6 months that have been falling around that number, which again I think makes it pretty legit. Compare that to both EIA levelized combined cycle costs and the LMP pricing you see in the ISOs most days when combined cycle is the marginal bid plus capacity auctions and they're roughly equivalent.

It's also important to distinguish between a residential solar plus storage and a utility scale solar plus storage as the economics are much different on both the cost and payment side. We're actually dangerously close (from a utility perspective) to the point where it becomes more efficient for homeowners and businesses to install solar plus storage plus a diesel or natural gas generator that runs a few days a year and completely cut the cord with the utilities. Distribution costs are around half of an average electric bill, so if you could legitimately cut that out it would be a huge cost savings. And disastrous for the utilities and their remaining customers because the rate base would get smaller and smaller so the relatively fixed grid cost would be spread around fewer customers, making it more expensive, making it more economical for them to cut the cord....a la traditional land line phone providers in the past 15 years.

The tariffs are pretty much balanced out by the ITC, so we're effectively at unsubsidized final pricing in the U.S. now. In my ideal world we'd take away tariffs and all subsidies for fossil fuel, nuclear, and renewables simultaneously, including requiring fossil fuel and nuclear to pay for the government infrastructure that supports their cleanup and regulation like the EPA, NRC, Coast Guard, and DOE. Or as anti-renewables folks used to like to say before they just started trying to change the rules to full out preclude renewables in the name of "fuel security".......stop picking winners and losers.

 

[BeautifulStranger]

Those are all what we called "levelized costs". And when you take that all into account, solar farms are right now delivering solar at prices as low as $13.50/MWH. By comparison, the next cheapest source of electricity is combined cycle gas which has a levelized cost of around $38/MWH. Those are real numbers, based on arms lengths transactions where solar farms enter into 20 year contracts to sell at that price, meaning they took into account all the taxes, interest rates, opportunity costs, O&M.... and are still making a profit selling at a price that's 1/3 of the next lowest cost source of electricity. If "the actual cost of solar is more than what you could by a ulility per kilowatt hour, I would deem solar as inefficient." then the reverse is true. And since in fact the reverse is true, solar would, by your own logic, be deemed "efficient".

Not trying to win an argument here, it just happens to be my industry and I play around with these spreadsheets every day and know the numbers very well and the data is clear on this. You may well have last done a deep dive on this 10 or even as few as 5 years ago and your conclusion would have been accurate. It is most definitely not accurate any longer. If you're honestly interested in this and would like to talk about specific current numbers that you think I have wrong or that support your conclusion I would love to discuss them. This is a fast moving field, and it's important to look at actual current data when coming to conclusions.

“Levelized costs”? How about using market price for traditional utility based electricity and comparing it to the actual unsubsized cost of owning a solar farm?

On the basis of that analysis, which I did in detail years ago, the cost of solar was not even close to tradional based utility pricing except, perhaps, in remote locations.

In spite of solar not being the cheapest avaible source of energy, there are still benefits for people and businesses to have solar on their rooftops for a little extra power reliability and disaster preparation.

To better feel the weight of the limited capability of solar, try to imagine running a traditional passenger car on exclusively solar. On solar alone, that vehicle would not be able to reach speed limits seen in most neighborhoods. Yes, I know about experimental low profile single passesger composite vehicles, including aircraft that have run on solar only. However, these are under controlled conditions and are not practical in the real world of stop lights, payload needs, consumer performance expectations, and safety requirements.

 

[Sig]

“Levelized costs”? How about using market price for traditional utility based electricity and comparing it to the actual unsubsized cost of owning a solar farm?

On the basis of that analysis, which I did in detail years ago, the cost of solar was not even close to tradional based utility pricing except, perhaps, in remote locations.

In spite of solar not being the cheapest avaible source of energy, there are still benefits for people and businesses to have solar on their rooftops for a little extra power reliability and disaster preparation.

To better feel the weight of the limited capability of solar, try to imagine running a traditional passenger car on exclusively solar. On solar alone, that vehicle would not be able to reach speed limits seen in most neighborhoods. Yes, I know about experimental low profile single passesger composite vehicles, including aircraft that have run on solar only. However, these are under controlled conditions and are not practical in the real world of stop lights, payload needs, consumer performance expectations, and safety requirements.

So lets start out with the most important fact. The installed cost of solar farm sized solar 10 years ago was $8+/watt. The price of solar today is sub $.50/watt. So any analysis done more than really a year or two ago in this field is hopelessly out of date and completely inapplicable. You gotta come to grips with that before going any further, otherwise you just can't have an intelligent conversation on the subject.

Second most important fact, the numbers I'm quoting you are arms lengths contracts between third party builders of solar farms and electric utilities. That is the market price! There's no more market than that, solar farm owners are able to build solar farms and sell the power for a fraction of the cost of the lowest priced fossil fuel source, combined cycle gas turbines. The numbers I quoted you are completely unsubsidized from countries that have no subsidies (and let's not get started about fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies and the negative subsidy of solar panel tariffs thanks to Trump). So let's make this crystal clear. A MWH of electricity generated by solar is being sold at arms lengths transactions in a market at prices for as low as $13.50. A MWH of combined cycle gas power is generally sold in a market at around $40 or more. Last I checked $13.50 is far less than $40. I'm not sure if you're willfully not grasping this here or what?

That fully covers your post I was replying to, which incorrectly asserted "By efficiency, I mean comparing all the costs associated with having a solar farm, including real estate taxes, an interest rate representing opportunity cost of land and equipment, system maintenance, installation labor, accounting and management, insurance or an amount reflecting risk of damage from a variety of sources, and depreciation with the cost of simply paying for electricity as provided by a utility company. If the actual cost of solar is more than what you could by a ulility per kilowatt hour, I would deem solar as inefficient." That is simply factually incorrect right now in 2020, despite the fact that it was accurate a decade ago. Sorry, the world changes.

If you want to go into a discursion about running a car or airplane on solar that would be an entirely different discussion. There's a little car company called Tesla, you may have heard of it, that's been pretty successful building cars that run on electricity. That could come from renewables or not, although if we had a 100% renewables grid then it would obviously come 100% from renewables. Can electric cars do everything? Probably not, but it would be a hell of a good start if we replaced all the grid power with renewables and some of the transportation. Can we have electric powered aircraft? Probably not, but if the only users of fossil fuel on earth were airplanes and some vehicles we'd be in a pretty damn good place compared to when fossil fuels ruled the earth; from a cost, pollution, health, and energy independence perspective.

BTW, only an idiot would think you needed to generate the power for your solar powered car entirely from panels actually mounted on the car! Please, assume your readers have an iota of intelligence.

 

[bone]

690 Megawatts using 7,100 acres. Includes four hours of storage using lithium ion batteries. NV Energy will pay an average of $38.44 per megawatt-hour for the combined output of the solar panels and batteries at the Gemini project under a 25-year contract.

The Trump administration has approved several big renewable energy projects according to the article - all in Western States where there is that kind of Federal land available and where the BLM can get it through the approval process.

LA Times: "Trump’s appointees at the Interior Department have shepherded several large renewable energy projects across the finish line."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-01-01/trump-to-approve-largest-solar-farm-las-vegas

So, to replace 12 nuclear reactors in Northern Illinois it would take 200,000 acres of land assuming that Northern Illinois would have the same solar availability as the Nevada desert.

At present, Illinois has 5,350 MW of wind turbines installed with an average capacity factor of 33.5% and as of 2019 supplies 7.6% of Illinois power.

Texas leads the United States in both installed and under construction Wind Capacity.

 

[Turveyd]

Solar panels have only just got to the energy output over life is greater than energy cost to make them, throw in recycling them 20years later and there still energy negative.

Japan has huge issues loads of them need recycling, materials are rare so can't not recycle especially in 20year old versions.

 

[bone]

Solar has come a long long way. The current panels are considerably better and cheaper than the old ones. Powering the US with just Solar and Wind is simply not realistic in terms of capacity factor, storage, and land availability IMO. The Southwest US is a different situation than the Midwest and the Northeast.

Solar panels have only just got to the energy output over life is greater than energy cost to make them, throw in recycling them 20years later and there still energy negative.

Japan has huge issues loads of them need recycling, materials are rare so can't not recycle especially in 20year old versions.

 

[Sig]

Solar panels have only just got to the energy output over life is greater than energy cost to make them, throw in recycling them 20years later and there still energy negative.

Would love to see the citation for that? Hint, you won't be able to find any real citations on that because its categorically false. On the other hand, there is an NREL study to show the opposite I'm happy to share with you - http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy99osti/24619.pdf

 

[Sig]

Solar has come a long long way. The current panels are considerably better and cheaper than the old ones. Powering the US with just Solar and Wind is simply not realistic in terms of capacity factor, storage, and land availability IMO. The Southwest US is a different situation than the Midwest and the Northeast.

There are 37,065,600 acres in IL, much of it fallow farm land. We would need about 13,600,000 acres to power the entire U.S. with solar (and much less when you throw wind into the mix). We're not short on space here in the U.S., that argument is a red herring.

 

[Turveyd]

Solar has come a long long way. The current panels are considerably better and cheaper than the old ones. Powering the US with just Solar and Wind is simply not realistic in terms of capacity factor, storage, and land availability IMO. The Southwest US is a different situation than the Midwest and the Northeast.

Talking more roof mounted 1's, Collectors ie mirrors heating water to drive a turbine was supposed to be the the best I thought a few years back.

Winds good at times, Tidal is good most of the time.

UK we pump water using spare power up hill to get energy back when needed later.

Need Fusion really, then with unlimited electricity Hyrdrogen cars become worthwhile, much less harmful than Lithium Batteries.

I'm Algae farm fan myself, CO2 neutral, create Gas / Petrol / Diesel used for Fertilizers and Plastics just like regular oil, no need to rebuild oil based infrastructure.

 

[BeautifulStranger]

The price of solar today is sub $.50/watt.

The current average cost of electricity for consumers in Texas is $.1186 per kilowatt hour, or $.000186 per watt hour. This cost of utility based electricity shown here is roughly representative across most utility electricty prices for consumers throughout the United States.

Again, taking away the solar subsidies and inputing all costs associated with producing power using solar cells, the cost of solar is at least four times more expensive in most parts of the US versus utility supplied energy.

No matter how one wants to look at it, whether by physics, through economics, or a simple cost comparison, solar is not a competitive form of energy in most situations.