fyi
Save for Later
But the Democrats say that spending over ten times as much for power will create jobs.
It would be useful to know the cost of the natural gas over the lifetime of the plant, among other things.
Hydroelectric pumped storage seems very inefficient. Aren’t they working on better ways to store electricity or convert it to hydrogen?
Solar Panels=Crispy Critters!!!!
Well of course it’s more expensive. That’s the idea isn’t it? To give other countries a better chance at beating America?
America is handicapped now, we are too good by all standards, and we must be crippled so the rest of the world can get their slice of the pie.
This is reparations to the world for having been successful.
This back-of-the-envelope analysis suggests that a solar (PV) power plant that could deliver that same results as a gas-fired power plant would cost about 14 times the gas-fired option to build. It is worth noting that the solar option cost excludes any subsidies, investment tax credits, etc, that could narrow the range, but it is obvious from this little exercise that until solar technology improves dramatically, there is little chance that it will replace natural gas as the “go-to” option for new power plants.
This is a very interesting analysis.
I’m all for developing new sources of energy, but, would like to see a cost/ benefit analysis done, as you have done here.
Maybe someday solar will be competitive with other forms of energy generation. Maybe. But until such time as that happens, we should not rush to see our energy costs skyrocket, by abandoning fossil fuels, just to make a political statement.
Hillary said something along the lines of, we have to get rid of fossil fuels. But she doesn’t want to forget about the coal miners who will be out of work permanently if she can make this happen.
Left out the environmental footprint as in how many acres each plant would occupy.
If you think this is rediculous, take a look at the Ivanpaugh Solar Plant in Southern California ( just across the state line from Las Vegas). It’s a huge looser that may have to be shut down because it’s not genrating the requisite power, and it’s a bird fryer.
There is a little truth here, though once the calculations get real, the case for solar is probably an order of magnitude lower, not to mention the risks and property costs for collecting 19,200 megawatts. There is no mention of tracking collectors nor of the efficiency of the photovoltaic cells. First, an optimistic analysis requires that the area of the solar field needs to be greater than 720 square miles. The configuration of the tracking collectors doesn’t matter, but imagine maintaining over 700 square miles of machinery in the desert, washing the surfaces of dust and sand, and where will you put the enormous storage reservoir? Large scale solar is made to order for swindlers and for the naïve. It is about energy flux density. Solar energy is very diffuse at the surface of the earth, and not much higher in space.
A rule of thumb for those who get tax incentives to put solar panels on their roofs is that in most of the U.S. where there isn’t fog half the time as in some West Coast cities, an average of 10 watts/square meter over 24 hours is a reasonable expectation. That is assuming 20% efficiency of the photodiodes, and tracking panels, which even Solar City doesn’t claim to provide. The only way that works is that government regulatory agencies can increase the cost of alternatives by killing coal, natural gas, and nuclear alternatives. That is what they’ve done, with much money in the pockets of politicians and lobbyists, from oil producing states. Islamic oil producers fund lobbyists and they get protected by the U.S. Military while taxpayers pay the resultant higher energy prices.
I’m guessing that the crude model assumes the illusory 20% collector efficiency. But pumped storage, since three quarters of the power must come from storage, is probably not better than 80% efficient. The collection surface needs to be increased.
Yes, I did these calculations when I was an idealist in college. You don’t want to depend upon utopian idealists when people’s lives are at stake.
When the sun sets in the west then the solar power plant is of no use.
Using 4% interest rates (typical corporate bond), solar cost is $0.057 (5.7 cents) per kilowatt hour more than the natty plant.
It’s a ridiculous comparison. The solar plant has a huge footprint, no one is allowing new pumped storage to be built, no one wants power lines in rural areas where solar must be sited.
Natural gas costs (real cheap now), solar is free, but solar collectors need cleaning by the acre, must stand up to storms, and will be down during extended cloudy periods.
Electricity must be reliable. Green energy is not reliable and is of limited value as an electricity source.
Dated an Ivy league MBA woman who adamantly insisted that the reason we weren’t exclusively using solar power was because of big business republicans and we weren’t trying hard enough.
The relationship did not last long because she could not tell a watt from a tw@t.
Don’t forget, many PV fields generate tremendously dirty power, when inverting the DC power to AC. It’s much easier to generate clean High Voltage from rotating generators.
Additionally, the more distributed we become on generation facilities, the more complex the overcurrent protection and coordination becomes. We’ll see more power outages from difficult to analyze faults over the next 10 years from all the larger DC applications being added to the grid.
A pumped storage unit is being built in Montana
“http://www.gordonbuttepumpedstorage.com/";
The cynic in me expects someone to stock it with fish and have it shut down. Other than that scenario, it will be interesting to follow.
I think the perfect solution to our electrical generation problem is to have the prisoners in all jails, prisons and those in welfare lines crank WW-II “Gibson Girl” generators all day long to power the grid.
That will give them something constructive to do and we will benefit from their punishments. What a deal!
I’m just interested - do you know the O&M for each? The feedstock for the gas? The land size for the solar?