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Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

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Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#11

Post by blunte »

undershirt wrote: post #4

Is solar just a stopgap tech? Like, do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild? And I know we’re now strip mining the ocean for battery metals. I don’t yet sense the sustainability in this amid all this economic hand-waving of “it’s getting cheaper”. (forgive my tone, i have a hard time of making sense of the big picture of renewables, hoping to eventually see how it actua…

If the manufacturing facility that makes the panels is itself powered by solar, then the true cost is mostly the materials and what it takes to source them.

As for batteries, not every dollar application needs metal or chemical batteries. There are other options as low tech as pumping water uphill, heating water, compressing air, etc.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#12

Post by maheart »

I recently watched the documentary "Planet of the Humans". For context, the writer of the documentary is an environmentalist.

One of the stated points was that solar and wind cannot be relied upon 24/7 -- to account for the lack of reliability, you need to have a backup power generator (e.g. coal power plant) running. The thing about coal plants (does it apply to natural gas plants too?) is that if you "idle" them, then have to ramp them up to feed demand, then later ramp them down -- it's a very inefficient way of running them. Now based on my understanding, it might be more efficient to just run the coal plant (or natural gas planet?) 24x7, in which case you've just added waste with the use of solar/wind. How much truth is there to this?

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#13

Post by Retric »

undershirt wrote: post #4

Is solar just a stopgap tech? Like, do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild? And I know we’re now strip mining the ocean for battery metals. I don’t yet sense the sustainability in this amid all this economic hand-waving of “it’s getting cheaper”. (forgive my tone, i have a hard time of making sense of the big picture of renewables, hoping to eventually see how it actua…

Solar panels can’t use all that much energy and raw materials if the final unsubsidized price is under 2c/kWh.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#14

Post by qaq »

maheart wrote: post #12

I recently watched the documentary "Planet of the Humans". For context, the writer of the documentary is an environmentalist. One of the stated points was that solar and wind cannot be relied upon 24/7 -- to account for the lack of reliability, you need to have a backup power generator (e.g. coal power plant) running. The thing about coal plants (does it apply to natural gas plants too?) is that if you "idle" them, t…

0? You can have utility scale storage and Nuclear as backup

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#15

Post by sephamorr »

undershirt wrote: post #4

Is solar just a stopgap tech? Like, do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild? And I know we’re now strip mining the ocean for battery metals. I don’t yet sense the sustainability in this amid all this economic hand-waving of “it’s getting cheaper”. (forgive my tone, i have a hard time of making sense of the big picture of renewables, hoping to eventually see how it actua…

I can't speak about wind (not my expertise), but for solar, the energy payback is about 1-year in operation for current installations, with a predicted 30-year lifespan. Compare this against estimates for the energy cost of bringing gasoline to market which can exceed 30%.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#16

Post by lallysingh »

Barrin92 wrote: post #9
undershirt wrote: post #4

Is solar just a stopgap tech? Like, do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild? And I know we’re now strip mining the ocean for battery metals. I don’t yet sense the sustainability in this amid all this economic hand-waving of “it’s getting cheaper”. (forgive my tone, i have a hard time of making sense of the big picture of renewables, hoping to eventually see how it actua…

I'm not sure about the resource costs of solar in particular but the question is a very salient one. Vaclav Smil has a great piece on this. "What I see when I see a wind turbine" "the quest for renewable electricity generation. And yet, although they exploit the wind, which is as free and as green as energy can be, the machines themselves are pure embodiments of fossil fuels. • Large trucks bring steel and other raw…

Sounds like a bullshit purity test.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#17

Post by Animats »

It's now reached the point that "energy producer" lobbyists are lobbying Trump to keep banks from refusing to finance fossil fuel projects.[1][2] They're now a bad long-term investment.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/05/08/us/08reuters-heal...

[2] http://archive.is/QSPle

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#19

Post by ktal »

undershirt wrote: post #4

Is solar just a stopgap tech? Like, do they still require fossil fuel energy to create, not to mention maintain and rebuild? And I know we’re now strip mining the ocean for battery metals. I don’t yet sense the sustainability in this amid all this economic hand-waving of “it’s getting cheaper”. (forgive my tone, i have a hard time of making sense of the big picture of renewables, hoping to eventually see how it actua…

Until there exists 100% clean options for the entire pipeline of resource extraction, transport, assembly, distribution, etc., there will still be fossil fuel involvement in 'clean energy generation'. Can't really make clean energy cleanly unless we have clean energy to make it in the first place.

Resource extraction / recycling is a whole other issue of course.

Re: Solar’s Future is Insanely Cheap

#20

Post by sephamorr »

maheart wrote: post #12

I recently watched the documentary "Planet of the Humans". For context, the writer of the documentary is an environmentalist. One of the stated points was that solar and wind cannot be relied upon 24/7 -- to account for the lack of reliability, you need to have a backup power generator (e.g. coal power plant) running. The thing about coal plants (does it apply to natural gas plants too?) is that if you "idle" them, t…

This is a relatively good point. In the California electricity market, the increase in renewables results in a very large power-ramp rate in the late afternoon (nothing unique to California). In general, more-efficient power plants either cannot, or lose efficiency, when changing operating power levels. A ~60% efficient combined-cycle gas plant cannot ramp power very much, which results in the grid building and running more ~40% efficient gas turbines, which can ramp their power output in order to meet the early-evening power ramp. Interestingly, at this point, adding more Solar to the California grid results in very little emissions reduction, since the additional solar displaces efficient baseload generation with inefficient ramp-able load. The solution, of course, is storage.
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