Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

[flacaltenn]

And who said we can do it overnight? But we can do it in one generation. And, with each year, the price of the renewables comes down.

You've had 50 years and BILLIONS and the technology is SO MATURE that companies are competing solely on price now. We are WAAAAY past the wax cylinder stage as JimSouth puts it..

I know you've worked in steel.. Ask the Electrical staff how long wind would power the plant.. Was that on Tuesday or Wednesday that wind in Oregon could power a steel mill.. And -- would it make it into the 2nd shift on the same day?

Interesting...... Soooo, you have stock in coal, got it....... Hell why else would you be arguing so vehemently against renewables?
Half of what I'm reading you say is from years or decades ago (technology related), how long did it take this:

To become this;

They're discussing progress in the renewable field and you seem to be going off the deep end.....

Dear Ringel -- You are on.. You will don your Hi Tech Mickey watch, and I will be armed only with a 1100 yr old abacus borrowed from Vanderbilt Engineering.

We will resolve values of simple quadratic equations and the loser has to adopt the failed technology as his new Avatar for a month.. Proceeds from the pay per view go to USMB.

I'm a big fan :>) of renewables OFF the grid. Where you can make storable quantities of stuff like desalinized water or hydrogen fuel. Also a big proponent of Geothermal.. But in that case, I want folks to know it's not actually reliably renewable (it peters out) and it is actually a dirty fracking operation.. Solar and wind have been oversold. OFTEN without consideration of their enviro consequences.

Solar is a 6 hr/day PEAKER technology no matter WHAT you do it with it.
Look at the daily production charts of a good windfarm. It's there for an hour gone on Tuesday, Wednes and part of Thur. With either of those, you cannot ADD capacity to the grid without the backup costs of building yet another RELIABLE nat gas plant or water boiler and paying the staff to play bridge whenever the wind decides to blow..

Lemme know WHEN you are available for the big "tap-off"....

 

[flacaltenn]

Ringel -- We are clear for the abacus versus IWatch showdown..

I checked YouTube and this is the closest I could find..

 

[kiwiman127]

Some people just love that fossil fuel and therefore hate alternative energy, because they are simply folks that let others think for them.
They hate green, gray is their favorite color.

 

[Ringel05]

And who said we can do it overnight? But we can do it in one generation. And, with each year, the price of the renewables comes down.

You've had 50 years and BILLIONS and the technology is SO MATURE that companies are competing solely on price now. We are WAAAAY past the wax cylinder stage as JimSouth puts it..

I know you've worked in steel.. Ask the Electrical staff how long wind would power the plant.. Was that on Tuesday or Wednesday that wind in Oregon could power a steel mill.. And -- would it make it into the 2nd shift on the same day?

Interesting...... Soooo, you have stock in coal, got it....... Hell why else would you be arguing so vehemently against renewables?
Half of what I'm reading you say is from years or decades ago (technology related), how long did it take this:

To become this;

They're discussing progress in the renewable field and you seem to be going off the deep end.....

Dear Ringel -- You are on.. You will don your Hi Tech Mickey watch, and I will be armed only with a 1100 yr old abacus borrowed from Vanderbilt Engineering.

We will resolve values of simple quadratic equations and the loser has to adopt the failed technology as his new Avatar for a month.. Proceeds from the pay per view go to USMB.

I'm a big fan :>) of renewables OFF the grid. Where you can make storable quantities of stuff like desalinized water or hydrogen fuel. Also a big proponent of Geothermal.. But in that case, I want folks to know it's not actually reliably renewable (it peters out) and it is actually a dirty fracking operation.. Solar and wind have been oversold. OFTEN without consideration of their enviro consequences.

Solar is a 6 hr/day PEAKER technology no matter WHAT you do it with it.
Look at the daily production charts of a good windfarm. It's there for an hour gone on Tuesday, Wednes and part of Thur. With either of those, you cannot ADD capacity to the grid without the backup costs of building yet another RELIABLE nat gas plant or water boiler and paying the staff to play bridge whenever the wind decides to blow..

Lemme know WHEN you are available for the big "tap-off"....

Yeah, kinda what I thought ya wanna be a jerk about it, hell all I was doing was pointing out what you "read like", guess I was correct. Too bad.

 

[flacaltenn]

Actually Ringel, anyone could DISCUSS my assertions, but more often than not it's more about how folks FEEEEL about these tech topics.

I'm aware of how socially awkward it is to mention actual problems and facts. But that's what I get paid for in real life (and NOT by the coal companies).

I figure the "alternative energy" crowd gets all the free marketing they need to oversell and misrepresent what they actually have. So let me be awkward.

 

[Old Rocks]

Mr. Flacaltenn, you will be awkward, and mistaken, with or without our permission.

Horses were put out to pasture, as will be coal, and then natural gas as wind, solar, and geothermal become our major sources of energy.

 

[there4eyeM]

Fresh water?
Floating, solar-powered desalinization plants.

Electricity?
Economizing first (there is no way America 'needs' so much more the electricity consumption than Europe).
Local, safe generation by various, local resources (sun, wind, gravity/hydraulic, geothermal).

Cost?
Since all these pay back and continue to give, they are cheap in the long run, so just make the long run available through easy, low-cost loans.

Down side?
Exxon's profits fall, militarists have fewer excuses for expensive interventions.

 

[flacaltenn]

Mr. Flacaltenn, you will be awkward, and mistaken, with or without our permission.

Horses were put out to pasture, as will be coal, and then natural gas as wind, solar, and geothermal become our major sources of energy.

Please tell me then where exactly I am mistaken.. Does PV solar carry a major GRID load for more than 6 hours a day in SOME areas of the country? Is Geothermal NOT a dirty mining operation? Do wind farms NOT go on the blink for days at a time?

This OP is a prime example of the overselling and the hype..

 

[there4eyeM]

Storage?
Hydrogen.
Solar power?
Over one thousand times more energy than humans use (and much more than that if realistic 'need' were to be considered).
Let's see, six hours times more than a thousand times used power equals, um,
much more than enough!
Golly!

 

[flacaltenn]

Tracking back the claims in the OP, like the 0.06/KW-hr in Saudi you find ---

ACWA Power Secures 344 Million Loan For Solar PV Project With The Lowest Tariff

ACWA Power announced that it has secured debt financing worth $344 million loan for the project. The low-cost debt is the fundamental basis for the low tariff of the project.

Padmanathan further explained that the capital expenditure in a solar PV project includes 50% for the modules (which will be procured from First Solar) and other equipment, 15% for operation & maintenance (O&M), and 35% for debt financing. Debt financing will be secured at a very low cost while the company plans to optimise local resources to keep a check on the O&M costs.



No where are the details of Land Acquisition, Enviro compliance, and cost of idling MAINLINE plants that are REQUIRED to back up the daytime peaking of this solar project.. More of a "financial" innovation than a technical innovation that got this project notoriety...

 

[bripat9643]

Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

Inside a sprawling single-story office building in Bedford, Massachusetts, in a secret room known as the Growth Hall, the future of solar power is cooking at more than 2,500 °F. Behind closed doors and downturned blinds, custom-built ovens with ambitious names like “Fearless” and “Intrepid” are helping to perfect a new technique of making silicon wafers, the workhorse of today’s solar panels. If all goes well, the new method could cut the cost of solar power by more than 20% in the next few years.

“This humble wafer will allow solar to be as cheap as coal and will drastically change the way we consume energy,” says Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366 Technologies, the company behind the new method of wafer fabrication....

Read on!

Solar is about ready to destroy coal!

How can it be as cheap as coal when every watt of solar power generation requires a watt of fossil fuel backup?

 

[Political Junky]

Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

Inside a sprawling single-story office building in Bedford, Massachusetts, in a secret room known as the Growth Hall, the future of solar power is cooking at more than 2,500 °F. Behind closed doors and downturned blinds, custom-built ovens with ambitious names like “Fearless” and “Intrepid” are helping to perfect a new technique of making silicon wafers, the workhorse of today’s solar panels. If all goes well, the new method could cut the cost of solar power by more than 20% in the next few years.

“This humble wafer will allow solar to be as cheap as coal and will drastically change the way we consume energy,” says Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366 Technologies, the company behind the new method of wafer fabrication....

Read on!

Solar is about ready to destroy coal!

How can it be as cheap as coal when every watt of solar power generation requires a watt of fossil fuel backup?

Link?

 

[30 year chrysler mechanic]

Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

Inside a sprawling single-story office building in Bedford, Massachusetts, in a secret room known as the Growth Hall, the future of solar power is cooking at more than 2,500 °F. Behind closed doors and downturned blinds, custom-built ovens with ambitious names like “Fearless” and “Intrepid” are helping to perfect a new technique of making silicon wafers, the workhorse of today’s solar panels. If all goes well, the new method could cut the cost of solar power by more than 20% in the next few years.

“This humble wafer will allow solar to be as cheap as coal and will drastically change the way we consume energy,” says Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366 Technologies, the company behind the new method of wafer fabrication....

Read on!

Solar is about ready to destroy coal!

 

[NLT]

Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

Inside a sprawling single-story office building in Bedford, Massachusetts, in a secret room known as the Growth Hall, the future of solar power is cooking at more than 2,500 °F. Behind closed doors and downturned blinds, custom-built ovens with ambitious names like “Fearless” and “Intrepid” are helping to perfect a new technique of making silicon wafers, the workhorse of today’s solar panels. If all goes well, the new method could cut the cost of solar power by more than 20% in the next few years.

“This humble wafer will allow solar to be as cheap as coal and will drastically change the way we consume energy,” says Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366 Technologies, the company behind the new method of wafer fabrication....

Read on!

Solar is about ready to destroy coal!

until it gets cloudy

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

Inside a sprawling single-story office building in Bedford, Massachusetts, in a secret room known as the Growth Hall, the future of solar power is cooking at more than 2,500 °F. Behind closed doors and downturned blinds, custom-built ovens with ambitious names like “Fearless” and “Intrepid” are helping to perfect a new technique of making silicon wafers, the workhorse of today’s solar panels. If all goes well, the new method could cut the cost of solar power by more than 20% in the next few years.

“This humble wafer will allow solar to be as cheap as coal and will drastically change the way we consume energy,” says Frank van Mierlo, CEO of 1366 Technologies, the company behind the new method of wafer fabrication....

Read on!

Solar is about ready to destroy coal!

Oh good. Here I thought governments set energy prices and since our's is bought and beholden by the energy companies they might have something to say about energy prices.

 

[pwjohn]

If solar is so cheap then how come germany has sky high electric rates?..More then triple what I'm paying over here.

 

[bripat9643]

Solar power will soon be as cheap as coal

Solar is about ready to destroy coal!

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

That will only be true if Obama succeeds in making coal 5 times more expensive than it was before he ascended the throne. Obama has already destroyed coal with his preposterous EPA regulations. Solar has nothing to do with it.

 

[bripat9643]

There is another revolution in energy and it's distribution starting this year. That is grid scale batteries. And China is already making major investments and purchases, some from the US, in this technology.

Sure thing there ORocks. We've done the China "grid scale" miracle before. But of course, you've forgotten the picture of the football stadium size installation of toxic waste that costs $500M and only serves to store energy for 6,000 homes for about 4 hours.. You've a scam artist who cant' accept reality because it would destroy your sales pitch..

As far as this thread goes. Does "cheaper" include the cost of the PRINCIPAL power station that provides energy all night and during bad weather -- but sits idle with the employees eating donuts when the sun is out? What group of morons is gonna fund the development of REAL power stations when the govt requires you to shut down randomly and at their whim to take a bit of solar electricity?

LOL. At the rate the solar installations are going in, there generation will be far more than a bit. And when you can store that power, then why pollute the ground, water, and air by using coal when solar is both cleaner and cheaper.

Before you say nukes, you get about 800 mW of energy in the form of electricity, and throw away about 2000 mW in the form of waste heat. Entropy strikes again. Where the wind and solar do not generate waste heat that you end up putting into the air or water.

Solar will never be cheaper than coal was during the Bush administration. Of course, Obama is doing everything in his power to make it more expensive than gold.

 

[bripat9643]

And then there are the ongoing developments in thin film. By 2025, solar is going to be far cheaper than any kind of fossil fuel.

It's hilarious watching the congenitally gullible salivating in public about their impossible fantasies.

 

[bripat9643]

Well, that is your claim. Of course, two years ago, people like you were saying that solar and wind would never be cheaper than coal.

The EPA is getting ready to make coal more expensive than gold, so I suppose it's possible.