The Energy 202: Solar power is forging ahead, even if Trump doesn't talk about it

[Dashinka 24,793]

6 hours ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Smart money knows that renewables are cheaper. Dumb money doubles down on a loosing hand.

Cheaper?  Reference please.

[Dashinka 24,793]

9 hours ago, yuna628 said:

Yes they did actually. It's an obscure factoid but it's true.

Didn’t we have electric cars before that?

[Dashinka 24,793]

An interesting take.  It really doesn’t go in depth with expect to the additional environmental impacts of mining raw materials for solar power, but it does touch on several aspects of the overall cost of solar environmentally.  The one that is interesting is the water usage for the concentrating solar plants, where are these plants in Nevada getting all their water?

 

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-solar-power.html#.WjjrBCROmhA

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-2017/

 

It us true that solar rooftops around North America being cheaper is still a decade out, but utility scale solar power generation in the south beat out the competition. Costs are dropping incedibly along with storage and wind.

[Dashinka 24,793]

3 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-2017/

 

It us true that solar rooftops around North America being cheaper is still a decade out, but utility scale solar power generation in the south beat out the competition. Costs are dropping incedibly along with storage and wind.

Don’t the plants referenced in the OP fall under the Solar Thermal Tower category?

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

39 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Why should government be in the business of promoting technology?  Sure, the government can provide grants and funding for search, but when it starts promoting one technology over the other it is over stepping its bounds in my opinion.

Trump’s Coal Man Is Racing Against the Clock to Bail Out Plants

By 

Catherine Traywick

November 28, 2017, 6:00 AM ESTUpdated on November 28, 2017, 12:26 PM EST

From 

 

• Critics, including producers, say payments would skew market
• Interim agency head rushes to implement rules before term ends

President Donald Trump is on the verge of subsidizing coal plants that would otherwise be driven out of business by cheaper, cleaner natural gas.

A plan that would leave consumers footing a potential multibillion-dollar bill is expected Dec. 11, and Trump couldn’t have chosen a more enthusiastic person to get it done: Neil Chatterjee, a Republican from coal country, who has spent years brokering seemingly impossible deals for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Now he’s cutting the biggest deal of his career -- and he’s running out of time to do it.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

19 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Don’t the plants referenced in the OP fall under the Solar Thermal Tower category?

Nope,  solar panels.

[Dashinka 24,793]

14 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

Nope,  solar panels.

So still more expensive than GCC.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

 

 

3 hours ago, IDWAF said:

Do you have loose hands?

 

Are renewables really cheaper?  How much for a Tesla car right now?  

 

Near my place last year, they built a $75 million solar array, that is designed to “reduce local electricity costs”.  Haven’t seen a reduction yet.  And one thing they WON’T publish about the farm is how many years before it starts generating a profit.

Tesla is interesting, let's see how the next wave >40k hitting the market pans out. Transportation is about 15% of the equation. 

 

The payback on solar can be complex to calculate: what is the cost of money? What is the speed to get the plant built? What are the current panel costs? What is the future market for energy. I think most assumptions have a life of the panel at 30 years. Obviously if panel prices continue to drop as fast as they have, future investments will have quick paybacks.

When the technology scales to support home and building installation, the economic and strategic payoff of a distributed grid will be tremendous.