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Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

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Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#2
This is called Swanson's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law

"The future is solar" isn't some hippy fantasy, it's a sincere market projection. Apparently, a robust, distributed, decentralized, sustainable power grid is unbelievably the actual long-term direction of free-market forces.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#4

This will definitely lower the demand for coal, which in turn could lower its prices as well. This is good, because India might still need few coal power plants, considering its population size.

Considering that India is making progress on nuclear, it would seem inevitable that they shut down a few if not all of them.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#6

This is called Swanson's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law "The future is solar" isn't some hippy fantasy, it's a sincere market projection. Apparently, a robust, distributed, decentralized, sustainable power grid is unbelievably the actual long-term direction of free-market forces.

Astounding! Yet another example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy !

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#8
“I sincerely believe that what the West is doing in this respect is anti-development and anti the fight against climate change,” he said, accusing rich countries of charging too much for clean technology."

I really don't believe any country is sincere towards climate change. Every country puts their economy before others. So expecting another economy to help you is a foolish assumption.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#9

“I sincerely believe that what the West is doing in this respect is anti-development and anti the fight against climate change,” he said, accusing rich countries of charging too much for clean technology." I really don't believe any country is sincere towards climate change. Every country puts their economy before others. So expecting another economy to help you is a foolish assumption.

It doesn't help that the developed countries want to flog off their increasingly-worthless coal reserves to developing countries.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#10

I'm not sure I believe this. Is this due to subsidies on solar? Or taxes on coal? I'm not sure this headline is possible at face value.

Neither - just production-level economies of scale. Operating costs of solar are way below that of coal, and setup and manufacturing costs have dropped significantly with volume.

Note the comparison is for new installations - coal power is only cheap now because the massive construction expenses were sunk long ago. Constructing a coal plant is a huge expense, particularly as it has to be centralized because it makes no sense below a certain size. Whereas with solar you can have very small installations closer to point of use that are still financially sensible. You win on capex, you win on operating costs, and you win on transmission losses. Capital expense used to be much much higher a decade ago for solar, and emission standards for coal plants were not rigorously enforced for old installations, making coal appear cheaper. Of course, if you count the expenses related to the pollution and health damage done by coal plants, coal was always more expensive.

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