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  • #16
    Originally posted by jflorey2 View Post

    Solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of power out there. Investors and companies who are smart enough to take advantage of that will prosper. Companies who can't will go the way of buggy whip manufacturers. Survival of the fittest and all.
    Wind works, solar does not. Take away the free money and it all goes away.

    MSEE, PE

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    • #17
      Wind works because GE (and others) chose to make huge capital investments in product development. As a result, you now have individual commercial wind turbines which have scaled to the Megawatt range:

      https://www.gerenewableenergy.com/wi.../turbines.html

      Based on GE's smallest unit (1.7MW) that's ~4657 PV panels @ 365W each. Not to mention the racking, conduit, copper cable, inverters, etc. and the number of square miles needed.

      Still, this is small potatoes compared to the size of an average natural gas fired power plant -- 200 MW to 2000+ MW

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...power_stations

      or Nuclear (900-1400 MW)
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...#United_States

      or Coal (2000-4000 MW)
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...power_stations

      Of course the other key issue is managing the unpredictability of the sun and wind. Gas, coal, and nuclear plant outputs run 24x7 (for the most part) and their outputs can be ramped up and down as needed to match expected demand curves.

      We could always build more pumped storage (-: One of the coolest power plants I toured as a kid was the old TVA Raccoon Mountain pumped storage plant (1652 MW)
      https://www.tva.com/Energy/Our-Power...ccoon-Mountain

      A modern twist on this concept was the use of large air bladders beneath the ocean (similar pumped storage concept) -- proposed in Hawaii, not sure if it was ever built. But probably equally as damaging to the environment and surrounding ecosystems as pumped storage. I cannot imagine how many fish, turtles, and frogs get chewed up with these plants. Of course wind turbines kill large numbers of birds and bats. Most solar power systems are pretty harmless -- save for the molten salt reflector dish systems.

      Other pumped storage plants
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped...droelectricity

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      • #18
        Originally posted by Sunking View Post
        Wind works, solar does not. Take away the free money and it all goes away.
        Both work - unsubsidized. Which is why they are growing so fast.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by jflorey2 View Post
          Both work - unsubsidized. Which is why they are growing so fast.
          Sure they work. That's not at issue. Question is, are they as cost effective to the same standards, criteria and cost accounting methods as the most cost effective alternate without subsidies ? And if not, how must the rules/methods be changed to make them as cost effective as the more cost effective method(s) ?

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          • #20
            Originally posted by J.P.M. View Post
            Sure they work. That's not at issue. Question is, are they as cost effective to the same standards, criteria and cost accounting methods as the most cost effective alternate without subsidies ?
            Yes, that is the right question to be asking. And the only way to answer that for real is to look what utilities are paying for solar and wind without subsidies. And as of this year, that price is lower than it is for fossil and nuclear power - without subsidies, and without the requirements the US has for power content.

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            • #21
              Originally posted by jflorey2 View Post
              Yes, that is the right question to be asking. And the only way to answer that for real is to look what utilities are paying for solar and wind without subsidies. And as of this year, that price is lower than it is for fossil and nuclear power - without subsidies, and without the requirements the US has for power content.
              If so, and I'm not arguing for it's own sake, but getting at the realities of what the utilities are paying and how that is interpreted is something of a question mark to me.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by jflorey2 View Post
                Yes, that is the right question to be asking. And the only way to answer that for real is to look what utilities are paying for solar and wind without subsidies. And as of this year, that price is lower than it is for fossil and nuclear power - without subsidies, and without the requirements the US has for power content.
                While the cost to generate power using solar has come way down it is still 2-3 times as expensive compared to FF plant if you figure in the % of its' daily availability which is at most 40% of the time compared to 24/7.

                I am not saying we shouldn't grow solar and wind as power sources but they are still not the cheapest power due to their potential unavailability.

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by SunEagle View Post
                  While the cost to generate power using solar has come way down it is still 2-3 times as expensive compared to FF plant if you figure in the % of its' daily availability which is at most 40% of the time compared to 24/7.
                  Solar and wind win when they're available. Power then becomes more expensive during the times when those two sources are not available. That's not the worst situation in the world, as it means electricity that causes air pollution is more expensive than electricity that doesn't.

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by DanKegel View Post

                    Solar and wind win when they're available. Power then becomes more expensive during the times when those two sources are not available. That's not the worst situation in the world, as it means electricity that causes air pollution is more expensive than electricity that doesn't.
                    How expensive a fuel is (including solar and wind generation depends to some extent on who 's doing the accounting. Often, the only ways R.E. can be conjured up as cost competitive with conventional fuel is when the costs of environmental impact are considered, as well as a generous added dollop of gov. subsidy. It also means that the capital cost of providing reasonably assured power when the variable resources of wind & solar are unavailable is not reduced by the R.E. sources - conventional plants must be the same size and have the same power availability with or without R.E. That also means that the R.E. plants must justify their capital costs on avoided conventional fuel costs alone while doing so at capacity factors of something of the order of ~ 15-18% or so. Tough to do using current logic and the same accounting methods across the board.

                    I'm not arguing R.E. is not worthwhile. If/when the holy grail of energy storage becomes viable, that'll be a game changer. Hope it happens soon. I often thought it ought to be a DARPA project. But, until then and until everyone is on the same page and in agreement as to what goes into making up the "cost" of a generation source decision, be it assigning some NPV $$ cost equally to all generation methods, or some NPV equivalent cost of environmental impact, including fried or whacked birds, or some $$ value to the long term costs of conventional, including nuclear generation with its very large Q.C. documentation bureaucratic and safety costs incurred for reasons that make sense or not, all talk about what's more or what's less expensive is moot and no more than jaw jacking.

                    As for environmental "costs", and people caring about quality of environment issues, I'd ask a rhetorical question and see if it might provide some rhetorical insight as an example of the lack of concern for such things: What is the just about sole concern and reason why folks who show up here with ideas and questions about residential solar ? --->>> Usually and almost exclusively for no other reason than as a way to reduce a high electric bill. I'd suggest that if they gave a real crap about the environment, they'd mention it more.

                    Given that set of priorities, what do you think the chances are for getting people to pay more for power so they can breath cleaner air etc. To the extent that's a general M.O., good luck on anyone giving up dime one for the sake of saving the planet. My suspicion is such will be the popularity and outcome of attempts to adjust fuel costs to save the planet as is often used to justify higher R.E. costs. So, we're back to conventional costing that doesn't use the things that make solar and wind to appear more cost effective.

                    Put all generation methods on an equal cost accounting footing and if the environmental costs are considered, a lot, but not all forms of R.E. may be competitive in lots of, but not all ways.
                    Just don't expect many folks to voluntarily sign on the idea of paying the environmental cost.

                    If environmental cost consideration benefits and gov. largesse are removed from R.E, my educated guess is their costs will go up and they will be shown to be non cost effective and non competitive with conventional generation for most applications.

                    At this time R.E. can usually be made to appear more cost competitive than it may actually be because, fair, or unfair, sound logic for the future or not, the playing field is not level when it comes to generation costs and how they are accounted for.

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                    • #25
                      import taxes to level the playing field, to tax imports to make them cost comparable to domestic products (EPA, OHSA etc) is fair.
                      Taxes to impose desired social engineering, is wrong headed and eventually fails
                      Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
                      || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
                      || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

                      solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
                      gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by J.P.M. View Post
                        How expensive a fuel is (including solar and wind generation depends to some extent on who 's doing the accounting. Often, the only ways R.E. can be conjured up as cost competitive with conventional fuel is when the costs of environmental impact are considered, as well as a generous added dollop of gov. subsidy.
                        Subsidies are indeed important. How big a total subsidy are fossil fuels getting in the United States these days? Is it more or less than the total subsidy for wind and solar together?

                        priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2014/07/OCI_US_FF_Subsidies_Final_Screen.pdf has some figures:
                        page 19: Total Annual U.S. Federal Fossil Fuel Exploration and Production Subsidies: $18.5 billion
                        page 21: Total Annual U.S. State Fossil Fuel Exploration and Production Subsidies: $3.1 billion
                        page 22: Total Annual U.S. Federal Consumption Subsidies: $9 billion
                        page 23: Total Annual State Consumption Subsidies: $2.2 billion
                        page 26: 2013 Total exim bank financing: $4.4 billion
                        That's $37.2 billion annually subsidizing fossil fuel production or consumption... not to mention the health and other costs from burning those fossil fuels.

                        Doesn't sound like a level playing field. If fossil fuels are so great, why do they need those subsidies?
                        Last edited by DanKegel; 07-07-2017, 03:17 AM.

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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by DanKegel View Post

                          Solar and wind win when they're available. Power then becomes more expensive during the times when those two sources are not available. That's not the worst situation in the world, as it means electricity that causes air pollution is more expensive than electricity that doesn't.
                          While FF will cause pollution and can have a "cost" associated with it I would say that any industry that runs 24/7 would have higher costs if they did not have electricity to run the equipment. That would mean less production hours and a reduction in work force. That IMO is very costly to the economy.

                          There are also places like hospitals and emergency services that could cause the loss of life should they "go dark" due to lack of electricity.

                          It all comes down to what someone feels is important and primary. For me keeping the lights on at a low cost is more important then worrying about an environment that will induce plant growth.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by SunEagle View Post
                            It all comes down to what someone feels is important and primary. For me keeping the lights on at a low cost is more important then worrying about an environment that will induce plant growth.
                            It also comes down to whether one ignores scientific consensus. Increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere does far more than induce plant growth.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Sun Eagle and Mike why do you keep letting Dan stay here? You know he is only post here to make trrouble and push his agenda. Nuke the SOB. You guys traded Russ for Dan and you know it.
                              MSEE, PE

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by J.P.M. View Post
                                As for environmental "costs", and people caring about quality of environment issues, I'd ask a rhetorical question and see if it might provide some rhetorical insight as an example of the lack of concern for such things: What is the just about sole concern and reason why folks who show up here with ideas and questions about residential solar ? --->>> Usually and almost exclusively for no other reason than as a way to reduce a high electric bill. I'd suggest that if they gave a real crap about the environment, they'd mention it more.
                                I think once they see how people like Dan are treated, they wisely keep quiet on that front.

                                On other solar forums that is discussed a lot more openly without the personal attacks and demands for banning that happen here.
                                Given that set of priorities, what do you think the chances are for getting people to pay more for power so they can breath cleaner air etc. To the extent that's a general M.O., good luck on anyone giving up dime one for the sake of saving the planet.
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