2 cents a kilowatt-hour! Storage cheaper than gas peakers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/07/01/new-solar--battery-price-crushes-fossil-fuels-buries-nuclear/#335081475971
The 30% tax break on capital cost is almost irrelevant...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd2 cents a kilowatt-hour! Storage cheaper than gas peakers.
And only three years late!
Personally, I hope they succeed. (Of course, now expect the usual suspects to start crying about 'too cheap to meter' because all the power WILL come from free sources...)
With Tesla's target battery price of $100/kw-hr (which does not include power conditioning equipment), the batteries would have to go through 5,000 cycles with 100% depth of discharge to reach $0.02/kw-hr. This is close to 15 years for 1 cycle a day that would be needed to replace a peaker plant. Sounds suspiciously like male bovine excrement to me.
Maxwell Ultracaps were running about $0.05/kw-hr if you had an application that would need 50,000 charge discharge cycles per year (6 per hour for 24 hours/day).
I didn't see anything about de-commisioning costs...
One problem I can see with solar farms is they take up an awful lot of space. The "eyesore" argument some place against them is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.
Hey, if they work, good.
Flintlock76 One problem I can see with solar farms is they take up an awful lot of space.
One problem I can see with solar farms is they take up an awful lot of space.
Ever seen a oil/gas fracking field? Take a couple minutes and cruise around this area in northwestern Alberta. Lots and lots of wells are needed.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/53%C2%B053'48.9%22N+117%C2%B023'46.7%22W/@53.8801286,-117.3656055,18418m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d53.8969145!4d-117.3962965
The ideal location for a large solar farm is out in the southwestern U.S. desert, where there is very little rain or clouds and fewer people. Perhaps the panels could even be set up on outlying sections of certain large military reserves, which are forbidden to the public anyway.
Or we could simply install the panels on roofs (would this be called Distributed Power?), using up space that is otherwise wasted.
There was even a company developing a sort of paint (for lack of a better term) that would form itself into one large solar panel after being spread on an appropriate material, the idea being to easily turn the sides and roofs of houses into small decentralized power generators.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
SD70DudePerhaps the panels could even be set up on outlying sections of certain large military reserves, which are forbidden to the public anyway.
Can't speak for Canada but most of military reserve land in the United States is managed similarly to National Parks land by DoD usually following recommendations by the green movement. I can't see them using solar panels nor windmills on it. Maybe abandoned military reserve land?
You would have to cover the entire state of AZ to create the same electric power that is generated by one large coal or nuclear plant. Plus the panels have to be continually washed or they won't produce as much (which is a problem in the desert), and they fry birds, and raise surface temperatures.
And then there is wind power, there is usually no wind blowing during the periods when you use power the most - the middle of summer and the middle of winter. Plus all of the required access roads, and the 1000s of miles of copper wire required to distribute the power, and the fact they are sitting ducks for major storms, they cause bird deaths, and change surface wind patterns.
Odd isn't it that in Germany and Spain they've been generating > 50% through wind and solar for several summers.
This solar plant (thermal, not photovoltaic) is about as powerful as one unit at the coal-fired plants in my area (each plant has 3 to 6 units).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
Is it bigger than the coal plant? Yes. But when you throw in the size of the strip mines required to feed large coal plants the size comparison gets a little more equal.
A large area of mirror/panels? Yes. The entire state of Arizona? No.
charlie hebdo Odd isn't it that in Germany and Spain they've been generating > 50% through wind and solar for several summers.
Denmark too.
I wonder how long before these discussions get locked by a moderator?
Must be "NIMBY" and "BANANA" aren't in their vocabulary. Around here, a small, but determined, group fights every wind project. They haven't been as vocal about solar/electric.
CMStPnP Can't speak for Canada but most of military reserve land in the United States is managed similarly to National Parks land by DoD usually following recommendations by the green movement. I can't see them using solar panels nor windmills on it. Maybe abandoned military reserve land?
Fort Drum, NY tried a co-gen, with the plant selling the electricity on the grid and the Fort using the steam to heat buildings. That lasted until the buried steam pipes started corroding from the outside...
That plant used coal or petcoke.
It has since been changed over to biomass, which drove the price of firewood up since contractors were cutting and shredding everything they could get their hands on. The way it was supposed to work was the plant would get the what was left from routine logging...
For a while, the power from the plant went to power the Fort, but Army has backed away from that agreement now.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 It has since been changed over to biomass, which drove the price of firewood up since contractors were cutting and shredding everything they could get their hands on. The way it was supposed to work was the plant would get the what was left from routine logging...
There are a number of wood pellet plants in British Columbia, and now Alberta that use the same strategy. The company has its own port in Prince Rupert, and while I can't speak for the other plants their Entwistle, AB plant ships about 2 90-100 car unit trains a week.
https://pinnaclepellet.com/
Britain is in the process of converting one of its largest coal plants to biomass:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_Power_Station
https://www.drax.com/press_release/drax-closer-coal-free-future-fourth-biomass-unit-conversion/
Average cost per kWh in the US in 2019:
https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/
Average cost per kWh in Germany in 2018:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power
Divide the German Eurocents by .89 to get the equivalent in US cents as of the latest exchange rates.
Just data.
Flintlock76 One problem I can see with solar farms is they take up an awful lot of space. The "eyesore" argument some place against them is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.
There's been a fair amount of discussion as to whether solar farms are a benign use of the land they are sited on. San Bernardino county has taken the position that no new permits will be issued for large scale solar farms. One concern for both solar and wind farms is the decommisioning process, specifically who pays to have the land returned to its natural state.
OTOH, rooftop solar does make sense as the power is produced much closer to potential loads. There still is the problem of the solar power fading away 3 - 4 hours prior to peak load (a problem thatutility engineers were warning about in the mid 1970's). Let's assume that Tesla can make batteries for $100/kw-hr and with power conditioning we'd be looking at $150/kw-hr. Figure another 50% allowance for limitiing depth of discharge to preserve battery life and we're up to $225/kw-hr. I'd be surprised if the batteries would last more than 10 years (3650 cycles), so we're looking at > $0.06/kw-hr just for the batteries at a price we won't be seeing for 2 - 5 years.
This still doesn't take care of the problem with cloudy days.
I don't know about anybody else, but Elon Musk has virtually no credibility as far as I'm concerned. He may be a visionary, but he's not a very good businessman.
Germany and Spain >50% is indeed odd when they are connected to a larger European grid, including France's nuclear "fleet", that can accept power during periods of excess renewable supply as well as supply power when the clouds come in or the wind dies down.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Odd that you would not mention that it cost over $.34/kwh. At 3 times the US price I don't see any sane people jumping on that bandwagon.
That is the average for electricity to consumers regardless of source. Gas and coal are more expensive there than here and there are higher taxes. Try giving a full story, Midget.
Percentage of electricity generated by renewables by country through 2017.
https://yearbook.enerdata.net/renewables/renewable-in-electricity-production-share.html
The US had the same precentage as France and Russia.
Cloudy days average out. Again, I have solar on my roof, and a negative electric bill. In my area, Southern Califonia, houses, especially newer ones, with solar is getting more and more the usual thing. The other day I saw a billboard advertizing a new development and touting that all the houses would have solar! So it a selling point.
Of course, the additional mortgage payment per month for a new house to add solar is trivial compared to the saved monthly electric bill -- again, at least this is true in So Cal where air conditioning is necessary and sun is a given. In a few years, you won't be able to sell a house without solar here because it will come incumbered with a big eletric bill.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this will solve all our problems, cure all our ills and after it's in place we can all sit around and eat lotus blossoms all day. HOGWASH!! Every time something new comes along somebody wets their pants and thinks it is the answer to all our problems, without thinking about all the unpleasant little details like initial cost, the vast amounts of legacy systems already in place, unforeseen technical problems, and various other unpleasantries. When a few thousand units have been installed for two or three years and have worked well, then give me a call.
charlie hebdo That is the average for electricity to consumers regardless of source. Gas and coal are more expensive there than here and there are higher taxes. Try giving a full story, Midget.
That is the full story. They don't get to pick the "source". They all pay the taxes and other BS. So yeah, no kidding, it's 3 times what the average is here. That's the full story. Solar in germany is a joke. The weather there is so bad that they have trained their pilots in the U.S. since 1956. Now , with reductions in force they will by 2020 finally leave U. S. soil and have minimal training in Germany as their fighter forces are reduced.
SALfan Yeah, yeah, yeah, this will solve all our problems, cure all our ills and after it's in place we can all sit around and eat lotus blossoms all day. HOGWASH!! Every time something new comes along somebody wets their pants and thinks it is the answer to all our problems, without thinking about all the unpleasant little details like initial cost, the vast amounts of legacy systems already in place, unforeseen technical problems, and various other unpleasantries. When a few thousand units have been installed for two or three years and have worked well, then give me a call.
Correct SALfan. The greenies have no idea of the consequences of ther pipe dreams. Bio mass fuel? Well yeah , lets denude the planet of vegetation . That won't help with CO2, thogh will it?
Solar and wind? You can't depend on them. What happens when a cloud blocks the sun? The rules of the game for grid operation require every generator to have 10% reserve available immediately. If a generator has a loss of capacity the 10% replaces itwithin 3 minutes. The generator who had the loss has 10 minutes to replace it and be back in full capacity. So, when a cloud blocks the sun and you lose 80 MW in 30 seconds, what do you do? The fastest gas turbine cannot go from cold to full power in 10 minutes. This pie in the sky generation will play havoc with the entire power grid. Coal may not be the cleanest option but it is a RELIABLE option.
SALfanvery time something new comes along somebody wets their pants and thinks it is the answer to all our problems, without thinking about all the unpleasant little details like initial cost, the vast amounts of legacy systems already in place, unforeseen technical problems, and various other unpleasantries.
On the other hand, there are quite a few people who do carefully assess the considerations (net of the unavoidable risk from variable political emphasis and incentives!) and conduct proper systems analysis. It is by no means difficult to understand what is appropriate for baseline solar, assess the cost, and determine what a 'correct' kW/hr charge ought to be. It's whether that has been accurately reported in this case, vs. being 'spun' to look better for various more-or-less expedient reasons, that's really at question here.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that there are alternative costs for the various levels of 'clean coal,' right up to full effective sequestration. These don't necessarily represent dramatic multiples of current generating cost, and ought to be considered whenever assessing any relatively short-term cost analysis of alternative 'renewables'.
There's a bad problem with proprietary secrecy in the "clean coal" sector, which has led to relative ease in demonizing it or making more or less pathetic claims that the whole approach is snake oil. In my opinion this is nearly as pointless as people in the fracking industry refusing to disclose what's in their fluids -- do they really think someone won't reverse-engineer them if they keep it a trade secret? But one thing that has proven difficult to engineer is human recalcitrance when they see potential profits, even when the changes would be to their benefit.
The vast majority of people and institutions even more so are fundamentally resistant to change. Change sets off alarms as potential hazards. And we are programmed to notice change more than the status quo.
Don Oltmann observed that with Amtrak running trains on out-of-date routes in existence for at least 70 years because "that's what we've always done. "
I just got my power bill for the month. Including all taxes and fees I pay less than 10 cents a KWH for my power here in Illinois and I have one of the most expensive power suppliers in Comed in the state. If I lived in Germany I would be paying more than triple for my power. NO THANKS I will stay here.
Shadow the Cats owner NO THANKS I will stay here.
Kind of a strange barometer to use, but I guess it's something..?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Overmod In my opinion this is nearly as pointless as people in the fracking industry refusing to disclose what's in their fluids -- do they really think someone won't reverse-engineer them if they keep it a trade secret?
Not sure how that would be done. The service company pulls up to the well location in their own tankers and mixing/injection equipment and puts the fracking fluid down the well. What comes back will sit on location until hauled away, but will be quite changed from what whent in. HCl/HF acids will be reacted and spent, surfactants will stay downhole, and petrochemicals will just mix in with the produced hydrocarbon.
I think think they should have full disclosure. Nevertheless, it is known generally what is in frac fluids from the required data sheets regarding health, safety and environmental clean-up.
MidlandMike What more could you want than the SDS? Why do you carry on with this hysteria about nothing? What makes you think that HCL or HF are used ? How could they be when they would react with the well structure before reaching the pay zone? Overmod In my opinion this is nearly as pointless as people in the fracking industry refusing to disclose what's in their fluids -- do they really think someone won't reverse-engineer them if they keep it a trade secret? Not sure how that would be done. The service company pulls up to the well location in their own tankers and mixing/injection equipment and puts the fracking fluid down the well. What comes back will sit on location until hauled away, but will be quite changed from what whent in. HCl/HF acids will be reacted and spent, surfactants will stay downhole, and petrochemicals will just mix in with the produced hydrocarbon. I think think they should have full disclosure. Nevertheless, it is known generally what is in frac fluids from the required data sheets regarding health, safety and environmental clean-up.
What more could you want than the SDS? Why do you carry on with this hysteria about nothing? What makes you think that HCL or HF are used ? How could they be when they would react with the well structure before reaching the pay zone?
Given Mike's long experience in the petrochemical industry, he knows.
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