BF2S Forums Estimated power generation costs

Spark wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

You're right. I care about peoples quality of life. You care about some green utopia.

Quality of life is built on the back of power generation. All that free time you have to sit on the computer or read a book is provided to you by electricity. How you say? By performing tasks for you which would take many hours more if done the old fashioned way, with horses. The combustion engine allows a farmer to plow and reap a field in hours instead of weeks. It allows him to pump water long distances to water his crops. It allows people to get to and from work. It allows cheap baubles to travel from China and be sold in our stores for next to nothing. And, it allows doctors to have the instruments they require to make sure that our children are born healthy. The fact that we are able to have free time every day instead of working in the fields from sunup to sundown.

You're thinking of oil, not electricity.

Electricity is far more important than oil. Without power we have absolutely nothing.

Precisely. The entire modern world is built on the steam engine and the power that comes of it. I'll be damned if I let someone degrade my quality of life (read: my amount of free time) just because they read a book by an environmentalist and think the apocalypse is on its way. It's not.

To then tether me to a system like solar which requires massively corrosive battery banks, the corrosive capabilities of which would put a nuclear spill to shame? Yeah, no thanks.

let's get rid of energy subsidies. for everyone (big oil, green, etc). let treehuggers put their money where their mouth is - if this country can find a renewable, sustainable energy source that is green, then GG. if they can't, oh well.

not having kids is a godsend, an unanswered prayer that got answered - i don't give a fuck about generations, i want energy now.

Jay wrote:

burnzz wrote:

let's get rid of energy subsidies. for everyone (big oil, green, etc). let treehuggers put their money where their mouth is - if this country can find a renewable, sustainable energy source that is green, then GG. if they can't, oh well.

not having kids is a godsend, an unanswered prayer that got answered - i don't give a fuck about generations, i want energy now.

I agree, get rid of the subsidies. Currently, the oil industry gets $20BN in subsidies every year. The ethanol industry gets $60BN.

Get rid of all subisidies. If it can't make it on its own (or with capital investment), then it shouldn't exist.

Shocking wrote:

I don't understand why you argue for solar this much, either. It's by and large the worst power source of all green technologies.

Hydropower seems to be a problem as well, due to the many dams in Turkey the Euphrates and Tigris rivers have almost stopped flowing, leading to massive problems downstream in other countries all throughout the middle east.

That leaves wind, which is terribly inefficient.

Solar is popular because the sun is by far and away the greatest source of power in the solar system, and by some clear margin. More solar energy hits the Earth surface every 30 minutes then the worlds total power use each year. It's also a source which will be pretty unchanged and reliable for  the next 6 Billion years. There is nothing else within 4 light years which comes close to those figures. If you can't see the obvious potential then you're missing a few brain cells.

The other thing that needs bringing up is peoples insistence of having large scale power stations, which is not a necessity. One of the greatest loss of power is via its transportation, which lends itself directly to having small scale (even individual) power sources much closer to their point of use, which would be both more efficient and environmentally friendly.

DrunkFace wrote:

Shocking wrote:

I don't understand why you argue for solar this much, either. It's by and large the worst power source of all green technologies.

Hydropower seems to be a problem as well, due to the many dams in Turkey the Euphrates and Tigris rivers have almost stopped flowing, leading to massive problems downstream in other countries all throughout the middle east.

That leaves wind, which is terribly inefficient.

Solar is popular because the sun is by far and away the greatest source of power in the solar system, and by some clear margin. More solar energy hits the Earth surface every 30 minutes then the worlds total power use each year. It's also a source which will be pretty unchanged and reliable for  the next 6 Billion years. There is nothing else within 4 light years which comes close to those figures. If you can't see the obvious potential then you're missing a few brain cells.

In a 'here and now' perspective solar has a LONG way to go. It's nowhere near what you want it to be not to mention that it does use very rare earth minerals.

+

Jay wrote:

Large scale power stations are used because they are efficient. Smaller stations dotting the landscape require more infrastructure and more fuel. So no, you're wrong.

Last edited by Shocking (2011-05-19 13:20:58)

DrunkFace wrote:

I didn't say it was perfect, far from it. Just why it is popular. But the potential if/when we get the technology right is far greater then anything else ever thought of.

Large scale power stations are used because they are cheap, not efficient. And I'm talking about integrating (primarily wind/solar) into existing or new infrastructure & housing.

You're not talking about anything. Are you in the industry? Are you? Because I am. And I'm telling you right now that what you are proposing is fucking asinine. You talk about potential energy as if it somehow makes the difference in the argument. It doesn't. I could just as easily say that we should use hydrogen as a power source because it's plentiful potential energy. Too bad it costs a fuck ton to produce it.

So outside of the theoretical dreams of a few lazy potheads, everything you've proposed here is fucking stupid. It's expensive. Who's going to pay for it? Me? You? Why? Why would I pay more for something that is less efficient and more expensive? If you were on a budget would you go out and buy a Hummer that gets 3 miles to the gallon and costs $70k or would you buy a used motorcycle that costs $15 a week to fill up? Right, you'd go with the bike, even though it doesn't have all the bells and whistles and isn't 'new'.

I get really fucking tired of talking to people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about but have a few talking points that they didn't think up themselves. Solar? Build a grid based on solar. Tell me what happens when it rains. Tell me what happens in the winter. Tell me what happens at night. You need triple the fucking infrastructure just because you think it's nice to have your water heated by solar energy instead of by natural gas. You still need the coal plants as a backup so why make it the backup at all? Right.

Jay wrote:

DrunkFace wrote:

I didn't say it was perfect, far from it. Just why it is popular. But the potential if/when we get the technology right is far greater then anything else ever thought of.

Large scale power stations are used because they are cheap, not efficient. And I'm talking about integrating (primarily wind/solar) into existing or new infrastructure & housing.

You're not talking about anything. Are you in the industry? Are you? Because I am. And I'm telling you right now that what you are proposing is fucking asinine. You talk about potential energy as if it somehow makes the difference in the argument. It doesn't. I could just as easily say that we should use hydrogen as a power source because it's plentiful potential energy. Too bad it costs a fuck ton to produce it.

So outside of the theoretical dreams of a few lazy potheads, everything you've proposed here is fucking stupid. It's expensive. Who's going to pay for it? Me? You? Why? Why would I pay more for something that is less efficient and more expensive? If you were on a budget would you go out and buy a Hummer that gets 3 miles to the gallon and costs $70k or would you buy a used motorcycle that costs $15 a week to fill up? Right, you'd go with the bike, even though it doesn't have all the bells and whistles and isn't 'new'.

I get really fucking tired of talking to people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about but have a few talking points that they didn't think up themselves. Solar? Build a grid based on solar. Tell me what happens when it rains. Tell me what happens in the winter. Tell me what happens at night. You need triple the fucking infrastructure just because you think it's nice to have your water heated by solar energy instead of by natural gas. You still need the coal plants as a backup so why make it the backup at all? Right.

Sorry but I'm gonna go with Al Gore on this one, he seems pretty on the ball.

He made the internet, you know.

FEOS wrote:

I'm not talking about the OP any longer. I'm talking about the broader topic of the green lobby pulling the same tricks you're accusing the "old-school" energy lobby of pulling...they just do it with different data. And you completely fail to see it. Most likely because it makes the kool-aid taste funny.

They're pulling the same tricks, to greater or lesser extents - hence the table in the OP is just bunk.
But, to be claiming Solar PV is worse than coal because a small amount of rare elements are needed compared with digging, moving and burning millions of tonnes of coal is bunk - especially when solar PV is not the front-runner in green tech.

Jay wrote:

To then tether me to a system like solar which requires massively corrosive battery banks, the corrosive capabilities of which would put a nuclear spill to shame? Yeah, no thanks.

No batteries required, read up.

You still need the coal plants as a backup so why make it the backup at all?

So you can burn less coal when the sun is strong or the wind is up?

You're not talking about anything. Are you in the industry? Are you? Because I am.

You're in the power generation industry now? I thought you we in construction. And you've been in, what, a year now?

I get really fucking tired of talking to people who don't know what the fuck they are talking about but have a few talking points that they didn't think up themselves.

Me too.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2011-05-20 02:30:03)

If you include the - at present unquantifiable - environmental costs, quite possibly.
Since its currently two to three times the cost of coal, the price of coal will only go up, and the price of PV will likely only come down, there's a good chance.

I bet nuclear would come out cheapest if they could atomise the waste and disperse it in the atmosphere.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2011-05-20 02:42:56)

Wow really?
I didn't know that.

Not for a while, but even coal will run out eventually. In the meantime the price will rise.

And there's no benefit in discussing how systems compare if you don't try to quantify the unquantifiables.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Not for a while, but even coal will run out eventually. In the meantime the price will rise.

And there's no benefit in discussing how systems compare if you don't try to quantify the unquantifiables.

Coal won't run out for centuries. We have staggering amounts of the stuff.

FEOS wrote:

They ignore, for example, the ecological cost of mining

As does the coal mining industry, only more so.

disposal of their technology

Which is likely much easier, and a closed loop process, than trying to collect millions of tonnes of gas and ash spread all over the planet - maybe you could estimate some costs for that.

Of course. The Energizer Bunny comes along to each house and powers it at night/in bad weather/etc, silly.

There are ways to store energy besides in batteries.