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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

#191

Post by ageofwant »

Intermernet wrote: post #188
ageofwant wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which can also be alleviated by reducing the local cat population by 0.2%

I once drove from Sydney to Cooktown (according to Google, 30hrs over 2720.4km, which sounds about right) and horribly managed to kill 2 birds, 1 wombat and 1 wallaby. I'd hate to think what the truck transport industry kills with every single trip compared to this apparent risk from wind-farms.

Last month I drove from Launceston to Scottsdale, I stopped counting dead wallabys at I recon about 120 (pademelons propably, hard to tell if their spread so thin). Many of those were in pairs, a bigger smear, followed by a smaller, joey-sized smear... Amazingly I only almost killed one, and managed to drive over a echidna (missed him)

Took the fun edge of an otherwise very pleasant island trip.

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

#192

Post by JackFr »

davedx wrote: post #29
noisy_boy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that every country puts their economy before others. However, India is not asking another economy to help them. India can develop its solar energy sector by itself. The west accuses the developing countries to be big polluters since they use less environmentally-friendly means of energy production. Then when countries like India try to subsidize the domestic solar energy market, WTO accuses them of il…

> India can develop its solar energy sector by itself. Until the US sues them and the WTO rules against them. http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-india-solar-idINKCN0QV2FD2...

So what you're saying is that without a local content requirement India is incapable of making competitive solar cells. I don't believe that's true. I think the local content requirement was simply a gift to politically well connected Indian firms. The Indian people should be thanking the WTO in this case, that rather than serving the interests of the crony capitalists, the interests of the people are being served.

Few countries have been damaged as much by protectionism as has India, and fewer have had such great gains by its gradual elimination.

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

#193

Post by vinay427 »

codecamper wrote: post #144

Who would have thought that India outdoes all the west when it comes to making sustainable growth. Google CEO Indian. Microsoft CEO Indian. Watch out all you fox news watching Americans.

You're going to claim that the Google CEO and Microsoft CEO being of Indian ethnicity somehow contributes to India's growth? I think it does the opposite, considering what people of their talent might or might not have achieved if they remained in India.

I'm not saying that they should have remained in India (far from it), but they chose not to so they could contribute to largely American growth.

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

#194

Post by dogma1138 »

Osiris30 wrote: post #174
dogma1138 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The need for "baseload", "storage", or "the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow" are red herrings. They are not relevant. They aren't red herrings they are poor excuses when used as a reason to not to expand renewable but they aren't without their merit. We need to improve energy storage considerably to be able to push renewables to be actually a major part of the electric grid. A a major part…

Misinformed. Please see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 and these links would be helpful http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt... http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p... http://rameznaam.com/2016/01/31/how-far-can-renewables-go-pr...

I'm not misinformed, you are looking for solutions for the current global energy production, I think we should increase it ten fold and that's only the beginning.

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

#195

Post by JackFr »

cies wrote: post #186
cies wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F k the WTO. Let's forsake them.

Funny how I expected (and was willing to absorb) down votes on my WTO-nag. Instead it was up voted!

Here's the thing though: Any country can walk away if they want. Why don't they?

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

#196

Post by pjc50 »

ageofwant wrote: post #178
Osiris30 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misinformed. Please see my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11524691 and these links would be helpful http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/ http://cleantechnica.com/2016/03/02/base-load-power-is-a-myt... http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/08/rmi-blows-lid-baseload-p... http://rameznaam.com/2016/01/31/how-far-can-renewables-go-pr...

Solar power is great, but it will not flood the Sahara and the Simpson Desert, nor pump gigatons of C02 from the oceans or melt the oort asteroids into giant glass ball habitats for the billions of earth creatures that will live there one day. For that we need something a bit more energy dense. When the first commercial fusion reactor is sold, the vast majority of "renewable" installations will immediately become red…

The first commercial fusion reactor is (a) a long way off and (b) going to be tremendously expensive. Whereas solar and wind can be deployed today for reasonable prices, reducing our CO2 output.

I wouldn't be surprised if the first commercial fusion plant in the UK is built only after the 30 year design lifetime of my solar panels has passed.

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

#197

Post by TheCoelacanth »

downandout wrote: post #142
Kliment wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison is between the cost of new installations - coal power is very cheap because the facilities are old and the capital expenses were sunk a long time ago. New solar power is now cheaper to build out than new coal plants, which is reasonable enough given the cost of both raw materials and production processes for solar had plummeted over the last decade whereas coal is a very mature technology that is effec…

>The comparison is between the cost of new installations That may be, but that isn't what the headline says. It simply says that solar is cheaper than coal, which of course is not the case right now.

Sure, but you can't build an old coal plant. You can only build a new one.

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

#198

Post by witty_username »

noisy_boy wrote: post #17
murukesh_s wrote: post #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.

You are correct that every country puts their economy before others. However, India is not asking another economy to help them. India can develop its solar energy sector by itself. The west accuses the developing countries to be big polluters since they use less environmentally-friendly means of energy production. Then when countries like India try to subsidize the domestic solar energy market, WTO accuses them of il…

India is subsidizing only local solar panels, that's the issue. I think if all solar panels were subsidized, then that would be fine.

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

#199

Post by droithomme »

1. The Indian government issues grandiose announcements of these sort on a regular basis. Each announcement is followed by international news waving their hands "it's happening!" followed by no follow up coverage when every single time the claims fall apart and the plan never happens.

2. "I think a new coal plant would give you costlier power than a solar plant." Someone's "I think" is a gut feeling by a government minister, not anything to do with reality.

3. The given cost comparison takes a one-time outlier lowest-price-ever in an auction to provide a 70Mw plant installation with certain assurances, with the overall average cost of the other technology. An invalid comparison, as well as inaccurate to imply that the lowest bid for 70Mw was also the bids for the other parts of the 420 mW projects.

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

#200

Post by ageofwant »

Intermernet wrote: post #188
ageofwant wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which can also be alleviated by reducing the local cat population by 0.2%

I once drove from Sydney to Cooktown (according to Google, 30hrs over 2720.4km, which sounds about right) and horribly managed to kill 2 birds, 1 wombat and 1 wallaby. I'd hate to think what the truck transport industry kills with every single trip compared to this apparent risk from wind-farms.

A colleague recalls a trip from Perth to Port Hedland on a overnight bus when she was doing picking up north as a student. Bus has a formidable roo-bar. During the night she was constantly woken up by annoying "pings" from the front. Early morning se got off at a stop to take a piss and witnessed the driver hosing of the roo bar. Something he did at most stops up.
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