The Dark Future of Solar Electricity

Watts Up With That? ^ | December 3, 2011 | Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

The “Annual Energy Outlook” for 2011 is just out from the US Energy Information Administration. The section called “Levelized Cost of New Generation Resources” looks at what are called the “levelized” costs of electric power from a variety of sources. Their study includes “renewable” sources like solar, although I’ve never found out exactly how they plan to renew the sun once it runs out. The EIA data in Figure 1 shows why solar will not be economically viable any time soon.

Figure 1. Levelized costs of the different ways of generating power, from the EIA. Blue bars show the capital costs for the system, while red bars are fuel, operations, and maintenance costs. Estimates are for power plants which would come on line in five years. Operation costs include fuel costs as appropriate. Background: HR diagram of stars in the star cluster M55 

“Levelized cost” is a way to compare different electrical generation technologies. It is calculated by converting all of the capita costs and ongoing expenses for the project into current dollars, and dividing that by the amount of energy produced over the lifetime of the plant. For the mathematically inclined there’s a discussion of the various inputs and calculations here. Levelized cost is the all-up cost per kilowatt-hour of generated power. The levelized costs in Fig. 1 include transmission costs but not the costs of backup for intermittent sources.

So why is this chart such bad news for solar electricity? It’s bad news because it shows that solar won’t become cheap enough to be competitive in the open market any time in the near future. Here’s why.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the comments:

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johnnyrvf says:

December 3, 2011 at 1:26 am

The latest Nuclear power stations are designed for a minimum life of 60 years and in the case of the new generation Thorium Reactors being designed in India, 100 years, what would be the levelized cost in cents of nuclear power if the length of the operating life cycle was taken into account?

[jonrick46]

Thorium nuclear power is the way to go. Too bad we have too few people with the engineer degrees to boil a cup of coffee.

[Marine_Uncle]

So lets see how cute and clever DOE Steven Chu is about what resources we have that provide the best bang for the bucks.... /sarc

[hadaclueonce]

The only thing “green” are the tax breaks.

[jonrick46]

I looked for a reply to your point on the Watts Up With That? forum. I was hoping that guest poster, Mr. Willis Eschenbach (The “Annual Energy Outlook” for 2011) would have written a response for your important point about Thorium power reactors. However, the dinosaur nuclear energy industry has all their money sucking up the oxygen away from any thoughts about Thorium power. I suppose they have also sucked up all the intellectual energy as well. I suspect that includes Mr. Eschenbasch as well.

Thorium reactors represent new reactor designs, new technology and the scrapping of our present nuclear power generation technology. There are billions of dollars counting on maintaining the status quo. At least India is ahead of the curve with sound energy policy. America's dinosaurs do not go easily.

However, for the sake of the human race, the dinosaurs must go. There will be a time when we may have to start considering launching the nuclear waste out into space and into the sun. That may be at a time when rocket ships are too expensive to get a brick off the planet. And the human race will only be able to look back in history at the legacy of those who put greasy money grubbing policy ahead of sound energy policy.

[theBuckwheat]

The self-styled architects of our future energy scold us on the topic of “sustainability”, yet not a single one of their economic plans is sustainable. The most important component is cost and they act as if their good intentions can cause expensive power supplies to be superior to those that are far less expensive.

Well, there are only so many jelly beans in the jar. The family that struggles to pay their $200 electric bill will not be able to pay one when it rises to $500, no matter how clean, sustainable or in harmony with Gaia new power sources may be.

But what is really going on when people who advocated solar power for years suddenly oppose a solar power plant because of how it might disturb a newly discovered endangered species? That they really didn’t yearn for solar power after all. Demands for solar power were really a means to an end- to end our prosperity and national power. And I am afraid this is really the end goal of too many advocates of green power.

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx for the ping Ernest_at_the_Beach !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

my power comes from Anaheim Public Utilities..for about $30k I can install a solar panel system that will reduce my power cost by about $200 per month. The city will pay upfront $10k of the initial cost. not bad.

[CT]

Very familiar with this "levelized" cost methodology. It is half-way sound. But then the left or liberals start adding on or discounting costs, so-called "externalities" and everything goes to hell. Not only that, you get these wack jobs that see these adjusted costs trying to tell you, you just don't understand.

I understand that coal creates pollution. And pollution and CO2 get 'priced.' But when will they price foreign oil at 80% of our supply vs. when it was (and could be) 20% of our supply?

[Marine_Uncle]

From the CO2 standpoint their all wrong. No one has ever shown and been approved by the whole "modern" science that CO2 can in any way raise the global temperatures of the earth. From a dirty coal emission regarding most particulates, we already have by law the particulate collection systems in place for most all coal burning electrical power generation plants.... grant you some say in Virginia are not included....but mostly nation wide this has been in place for a number of years. And that includes things like Sulfuric Acid emissions. The only factor remaining on the environmentalist agenda, correct me if I am miss informed, is the issue with what level on average a coal burning electric power plant produces in the very minute quantities of mercury, measured in parts per billion.
This whole issue on coal has been treated out of hand, and given free reign by the EPA and their drivers on the left, and goodie enviro groups to hog tie the industry.
So be careful with the Carbon Dioxide part of the equation relating to burning coal for electrical production.
Mercury in the minute amounts emitted, yes can be a valid issue, but then we get into the current go around, where some show the EPA standards are not being violated, verse those that claim no matter how small the emissions, they are a health risk. I don't know for sure if I sort of addressed your comments. Sorry if I did not.

[CT]

Sorry if I did not get that across. I was in the power biz for over 28 years. Agree with you on all points.

[Marine_Uncle]

Sorry. I most probably did not read as carefully your statements as I should have. Do have a great upcoming day.

[SteamShovel]

This whole issue on coal has been treated out of hand, and given free reign by the EPA and their drivers on the left, and goodie enviro groups to hog tie the industry.

I've advocated for a long time that there is no such thing as "clean coal" because with a plant in service today there is not "dirty coal". They use precipitators, low nox burners, scrubbers, and/or low sulfur coal. They tune combustion and monitor it to the nth degree.

I don't believe mercury to be the threat the left portrays. There is a lot of research that has shown environmental mercury to have been higher in the past. Coal contains so little mercury that you can take sample after sample to find just a trace of it. It doesn't show up in chemical analysis done by plants who sample their coal continuously. They have to burn tons of it to emit just a trace. If it is in the coal in traces, it was in the environment once before and we are returning just a little bit of that which was locked in coal since we can't burn all the coal for the next 500 years. My point is, it is so little and it is dispersed globally. It is nothing.

The left has added CO2 as a "pollutant" to make the case that coal is dirty. They use the term to conjure up images of dirty fatherless 12 year old boys with black lung working the underground mines in 1900. These conditions do not exist outside of the plants and mines, and inside the mines they barely exist. Additionally, nobody has been forced to work in a coal mine, they do it willingly for the money.

Dirty coal is nothing but a political BS argument.

[Marine_Uncle]

I would offer a ditto to your statements. Their so one sided on this issue.