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

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

#41

Post by [deleted] »

epistasis wrote: post #29
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…

[deleted]

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

#42

Post by sfifs »

FussyZeus wrote: post #2

Coal was dead long before Trump was elected. The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this. The worst victims of all of this are of course the people being told that coal is coming back, that the way that their fathers made a solid living will someday return so they continue sitting in a pit of addiction and despair, waiting for th…

>> The fact that he and the majority of the GoP continue to lack the political will to tell their people the truth does not change this.

The end incentive of a politician is to win and retain power. The means to the end this is to take popular positions and be seen to do something about issues voters care about. They're doing precisely that.

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

#43

Post by [deleted] »

matt4077 wrote: post #33
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…

Coal production hasn't actually changed that much over the last decades. It has just moved west, and become muh more efficient. (Unfortunately...)

[deleted]

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

#44

Post by dangerlibrary »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #37
dangerlibrary wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, and unrelated to the conversation at hand or anything I said. If those externalities were priced in, much of the relative cost description I gave would be wrong. But they aren't. That's not to say they shouldn't be - just that right now the fact is that they aren't.

If I worked in an industry, and a new competitor came out that was initially more expensive, but killed less people, I'm not sure I'd be that surprised if my work started to dry up in favor of the less deadly alternative(s). If at least one of the alternatives was cheaper too, then I would surmise the game was up.

If you were an arms manufacturer you would be thoroughly unconcerned.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

sfifs wrote: post #40
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.

Perhaps you misunderstood what marginal cost means. It is the cost of generating one additional unit of power on an already​ existing infrastructure. It takes expense to mine an additional ton of coal, transport it to a power plant, burn it and convert it into electricity even after the underlying infrastructure is setup. It doesn't for solar and wind.

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by iamatworknow »

FussyZeus wrote: post #18
bdavisx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean one could make a very similar argument between the displaced coal miners and the people who still work for a failing startup. You want to believe the good times are coming again and that desire to believe can override a lot of really good logical thinking. Americans are hopeful, it's our single greatest strength and the source of our most disastrous failings.

I think that comparison is a little weak. Most startups fail but some still succeed, and those working for the startups that are failing can look at the success stories and aspire to that, and it's not completely unreasonable for them to do so.

Meanwhile there's no coal mining company that's booming while others flounder. The whole industry is shrinking. It'd be more like if cell phones were becoming obsolete in favor of cranial implants or something, but you were still working on a social app for Android.

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

#47

Post by accountyaccount »

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.

Once we're saturated enough with solar I can't imagine there being an easier ad-hoc way to generate energy for small groups in the post-apocalypse. I think you're right though that coal is the ultimate society at-scale fallback.

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

#48

Post by Mendenhall »

sfifs wrote: post #40
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.

Perhaps you misunderstood what marginal cost means. It is the cost of generating one additional unit of power on an already​ existing infrastructure. It takes expense to mine an additional ton of coal, transport it to a power plant, burn it and convert it into electricity even after the underlying infrastructure is setup. It doesn't for solar and wind.

That falls under "rhetoric" the author takes a small unit of time "when sun is shining and wind is blowing" to then use the word "free". Thats cherry picking to the extreme and rhetoric 101. It is used to paint a picture that does not really exist. What happens to solar and wind when its night and the wind is still? By cherry picking and creating a scene which doesnt truly exist it paints a false picture of the efficiency of solar at this moment. Hence why I used "rhetoric".

I could also say that is a falsehood in the practicle sense because of what it left out but that wasnt my original intention. My falsehood statement was to include the part about shale which since shale fields are limited its simply not true.

We could further get into UV rays breakin down solar panels etc but that really wasnt my point. I dont expect people to see the rhetoric and falsehoods used in this article but it stood out to me like a sore thumb so I commented.

Nor was I somehow saying save coal or coal is more efficient etc. It was only a comment on the rhetoric and falshoods I saw in a very short span of words.

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

#49

Post by dangerlibrary »

shuntress wrote: post #38
dangerlibrary wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

I do not need a lesson on empathy. "We need less workers to meet the demand for coal." "I don't believe you." Either one is lying or the other is ignorant.

There is always uncertainty when predicting the future.

Reasonable people - especially those who are starting with different assumptions and data - can come to different conclusions about which outcome is most likely.

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

#50

Post by michaelt »

epistasis wrote: post #29
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…

  Why do you think "essentially free" marginal
  renewable cost is a falsehood?
Unless you can control the sun, the cost for one extra kilowatt of solar power is the cost of a 1kw solar panel?
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