Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 160 posts

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#21

Post by phaemon »

marcgcombi wrote: post #16

#FakeNews title and all. This is not flamebate, so please do not flag me. I would like to point out that the average cost of production for wind was found to be $80 - $129 / MWh when you include subsidies, transmission, base load challenges, etc. From Newsweek (arguably a progressive-leaning publication): "The best estimate available for the total cost of wind power is $149 per megawatt-hour, taken from Giberson’s 20…

From the Newsweek link:

"Editor's note: The author of this piece, Randy Simmons, is the Charles G. Koch professor of political economy at Utah State University. He's also a senior fellow at the Koch- and ExxonMobil-funded Property and Environment Research Center. These ties to the oil industry weren't originally disclosed in this piece. "

Might have known as soon as you used the "#FakeNews" tag...

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#22

Post by rybosome »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #15
shuntress wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't I believe them? Assuming they are pointing to the datacenter equivalents of wind/solar/nuclear energy as the reason why datacenter use is shrinking. Edit: Did you mean to imply that Coal is not actually going away because the 'cheaper alternatives' are fake?

Wind and solar are non-starters. They're more expensive than coal and they can't cover base load. Nuclear could cover base load but is orders of magnitude more expensive (up-front) than coal. Huge investment, huge regulatory burden, huge political risk. Until recently, we hadn't built a new nuclear plant in the country for decades. [0] Coal is cheap and reliable. Always has been. What's killing coal is low, non-volat…

So disgusting that the biggest threat to coal is natural gas, yet it's being blamed on environmental regulation. Do Scott Pruitt et. al really believe they're going to juice the economy, or are they cynically handing political favors to their wealthy friends?

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#23

Post by uxp100 »

shuntress wrote: post #12
dangerlibrary wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For about a century, coal has been the cheapest, most reliable fuel for utility-scale power generation. For most of the eastern seaboard, coal has only been supplanted by natural gas (slowly) over the last ten years. Competing fuel price fluctuations dictated the change. Natural gas prices before fracking were both higher and much more volatile. There have been periods of ebb and flow that many workers and their fami…

Why shouldn't I believe them? Assuming they are pointing to the datacenter equivalents of wind/solar/nuclear energy as the reason why datacenter use is shrinking. Edit: Did you mean to imply that Coal is not actually going away because the 'cheaper alternatives' are fake?

Mainly Natural Gas.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/topic/0?agg=2...

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#24

Post by shuntress »

dangerlibrary wrote: post #15
shuntress wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't I believe them? Assuming they are pointing to the datacenter equivalents of wind/solar/nuclear energy as the reason why datacenter use is shrinking. Edit: Did you mean to imply that Coal is not actually going away because the 'cheaper alternatives' are fake?

Wind and solar are non-starters. They're more expensive than coal and they can't cover base load. Nuclear could cover base load but is orders of magnitude more expensive (up-front) than coal. Huge investment, huge regulatory burden, huge political risk. Until recently, we hadn't built a new nuclear plant in the country for decades. [0] Coal is cheap and reliable. Always has been. What's killing coal is low, non-volat…

I should have included natural gas.

Yes wind/solar/nuclear aren't going to fully replace coal but any share of energy production they pick up is share that coal can't fill.

That plus improved efficiency and automation reduces the need for 'coal jobs'.

I get that it's not a straight forward as miners plugging their ears and closing their eyes while chanting 'coal is here to stay' but the necessity of coal is shrinking and it is hard for me to attribute the refusal to agree with that to anything other than ignorance.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#25

Post by Tade0 »

mirko22 wrote: post #5

More and more people are turning to Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors, like Liquid Fluoride Thorium Breeders, If Kirk Sorensen and others are right this will revolutionize energy (and probably not just energy but mining, water desalination etc.) as we know it unlike wind or solar ever could. Natural gas and coal should die once and for all as they are as dirty as it gets. I strongly believe we are ready for truly nuclear…

There's one problem with nuclear that probably will never be overcome: it takes around 20 years from commissioning to the eventual connection of a nuclear power plant to the grid.

You can have an equivalent in solar, wind + storage in less than three years. That's 17 years of not producing electricity.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#26

Post by bryanlarsen »

bdavisx wrote: post #13
FussyZeus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the luxury of not depending on it coming back in order to earn a living again. I'm not saying it's a good thing they believe it, I'm saying the conned is still the victim: it's the conartist that should be punished, and the GOP has been conning Appalachia for decades.

The real solution is how do you get the people being conned to recognize that they are being conned and quit voting for the people conning them. If there wasn't a payout (e.g. people being (re)elected), then it wouldn't be happening.

Oh, they know they're being conned, they're not stupid.

It's just that they believe that both sides are conning them, and they vote for the most appealing set of lies.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#27

Post by loeg »

Mendenhall wrote: post #11

Was hard to get through the rhetoric and falsehoods like "When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, the marginal cost of that electricity is essentially free" I read on until "The natural gas that comes out of these wells is practically free" Then I had to give up because its obvious propaganda with no real interest in the truth. I am all for clean energy, but unfactual propaganda isnt good for anyone.

> When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, the marginal cost of that electricity is essentially free

The marginal cost for additional GW is essentially free. The marginal cost totally ignores capital cost and just involves operational costs, which are (?)nothing for solar and (?)low for wind.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#28

Post by dangerlibrary »

shuntress wrote: post #24
dangerlibrary wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar are non-starters. They're more expensive than coal and they can't cover base load. Nuclear could cover base load but is orders of magnitude more expensive (up-front) than coal. Huge investment, huge regulatory burden, huge political risk. Until recently, we hadn't built a new nuclear plant in the country for decades. [0] Coal is cheap and reliable. Always has been. What's killing coal is low, non-volat…

I should have included natural gas. Yes wind/solar/nuclear aren't going to fully replace coal but any share of energy production they pick up is share that coal can't fill. That plus improved efficiency and automation reduces the need for 'coal jobs'. I get that it's not a straight forward as miners plugging their ears and closing their eyes while chanting 'coal is here to stay' but the necessity of coal is shrinking…

Absent regulation like a carbon tax that would change the economics substantially, coal is pretty unlikely to disappear completely in our lifetimes. In the short term, there is a lot of regulatory risk involved in natural gas from shale fracking - prices could suddenly skyrocket and having coal as a backup is absolutely essential for power generation companies. In the long term, there is a lot of uncertainty about when utility-scale battery tech, molten salt nuclear, or other base load generation tech will become cost effective on a TCO basis.

It's much easier to assume those that disagree with us are ignorant than to assume that we are ignorant of something and seek out alternative explanations for their beliefs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/opinion/nicholas-kristof-...

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#29

Post by epistasis »

Mendenhall wrote: post #11

Was hard to get through the rhetoric and falsehoods like "When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, the marginal cost of that electricity is essentially free" I read on until "The natural gas that comes out of these wells is practically free" Then I had to give up because its obvious propaganda with no real interest in the truth. I am all for clean energy, but unfactual propaganda isnt good for anyone.

Could you explain why you think that's a misrepresentation?

Why do you think "essentially free" marginal renewable cost is a falsehood? The difference between lettings the electrons flow and not letting the electrons flow on an installed plant is what, exactly? That's what's being referenced.

Though there's lots of data to support the article, they do leave out the cost of extracting natural gas from the "practically free" wells. What is that cost?

>unfactual propaganda isnt good for anyone.

As I see it, the article's thrust is true. I'd love to be proven wrong though, with some facts, if you can provide them.

Re: The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, and Coal Won’t Cut It

#30

Post by [deleted] »

strictnein wrote: post #19

I'm glad we're leaving a lot of coal in the ground, but for different reasons. If society as a whole ever slides backwards (due to global war, horrific disease, etc), it leaves a lot of fairly easily extractable energy for the future generation that survives. Dark way of looking at it, I know.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN