Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought

When looking at these graphs, it pays to take a peek at who exactly is behind them. Modeling the costs and benefits of different forms of energy (especially environmental costs) is extremely easy to fudge. There are all sorts of assumptions you have to plug in to the model where you could covertly insert a policy bias. If the &#x27;measurer&#x27; had an agenda, it wouldn&#x27;t be hard for them to push the figures one way or another and still keep the model looking clean-ish from the outset.<p>Bearing that in mind, it&#x27;s worth pointing out that Exxon-Mobil is a major donor to the brookings institute - they&#x27;re also part of the group ALEC that has been leading a massive attack on rooftop solar in the last 18 months.<p>One of those attacks, for instance, has been to increase the price by slapping up to 35% tariffs on Chinese panels through (mostly false) accusations of dumping. I wouldn&#x27;t be terribly surprised if this were counted in the cost model, but subsidies were discounted.<p>Another thing they&#x27;ve been doing recently is to try to &#x27;greenwash&#x27; natural gas - to make it look like the cleaner alternative to coal to capitalize on the fracking boom. One of the assumptions I can virtually guarantee that they&#x27;ve made here, for instance, is that global warming effect of methane leakage (which is very significant) has been entirely discounted.

The research is provided by the Brookings institution which is more public relations agency than a research institution. The only thing you can take away from this &quot;research&quot; is that someone paid to get this result.

For solar and wind to make sense it is all about the storage in the short term and global interconnects in the long term, rather than the current system of trying to balance against a baseload.<p>And nuclear is great in many ways, but you cannot have a global energy solution that you couldn&#x27;t happily give to your enemies, whatever the price per watt is.

The issue of intermittency is in my opinion vastly undercommunicated in public debate about renewable energy, at least in Europe. A diagram like this [1] can be used to illustrate the issue. Although this diagram is from a hypothetical UK modeling exercise for 2020, the broader point it makes is valid. On the diagram we see how daily electricity demand follow a predictable daily curve, and the different sources of electricity that are used to meet that demand. We see that electricity from nuclear and coal provide the most stable component, whereas power from wind (green) varies hugely in time. Gas power, which can be turned on and off quickly, is used to fill the gaps in demand. At times, there is almost enough wind that no generation from fossil fuels is necessary, but at other times most of the electricity has to come from burning gas (I&#x27;ve seen similar scenario graphs where wind occasionally fills more than 100% of the demand, but still gas power will be needed for a large component of the energy mix when integrating over time).<p>The point is that without some incredible advance in energy storage capability on a scale that is not on the radar today, we are stuck with an energy system where a significant component needs to be non-solar and non-wind. From a climate perspective, the best options would then be nuclear electricity or electricity from fossil fuel plans equipped with CCS technology (which is now belatedly emerging).<p>(Disclaimer: I work with CCS-related technology development).<p>[1] <a href="http://www.timera-energy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hourly-Renewables-Penetration.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timera-energy.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2012&#x2F;11&#x2F;Hour...</a><p>(link to page from which picture is taken: <a href="http://www.timera-energy.com/uk-power/getting-to-grips-with-intermittency/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.timera-energy.com&#x2F;uk-power&#x2F;getting-to-grips-with-...</a>

Wind and solar power are commonly thought to be very expensive -- more expensive than conventional thermal fuel sources for generating electricity.<p>And that&#x27;s true in areas where there is little sun, or little wind. Though, in windy areas (the US great plains) or sunny areas (Atacama Desert in Chile, much of Africa, Australia (outside the coasts), and Southwestern US), these are the least expensive source of new capacity and that&#x27;s reflected in the free market -- what is getting built.<p>Until governments quit subsidizing _all_ source of energy at _all) points in the value chain, the market can&#x27;t really respond efficiently.

&quot;Wind power is not generated on a calm day, nor solar power at night, so conventional power plants must be kept on standby—but are not included in the levelised cost of renewables.&quot;<p>Solar not generating power at night is a good thing. Demand for electricity is lower at night, and turning on and off conventional power stations is not ideal. Solar helps level things out, meaning you need fewer conventional power stations to be built and kept in standby.

I&#x27;m not sure why wind and solar power are always mentioned together, other than they both are forms of &quot;alt energy.&quot;<p>From a U.S. perspective, solar power is less productive in the eastern half of the U.S., so I&#x27;m not sure why we haven&#x27;t just concentrated on blanketing stretches of desert in the U.S. West with solar farms. This is the highest-reward area, not attaching solar panels to someone&#x27;s roof in Wisconsin. I think that focusing on high-yield areas with lots of sunlight might be one way to make costs fall. Done right, it might fairly well take care of much of our energy needs.<p>Source: <a href="http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nrel.gov&#x2F;gis&#x2F;solar.html</a><p>Conversely, I don&#x27;t think wind power can come close to taking care of large percentages of our energy needs. It&#x27;s subsidized, so it happens, but it&#x27;s not The Answer (imho).

I have enough photovoltaic solar on my roof to provide all the electricity I need over the course of a year. I remain grid connected because the power from the roof rarely matches the demand during any given hour. Intermittency is a real issue that any realistic grid will need to take into account. Rather than the political posturing driven approach we seem to have today, what we really need is sober, clear eyed engineering and financing to solve this.<p>It was heartening to read about the VC funded fusion projects the other day.

You can be 100% assured that if anybody wants to talk to you about &quot;the costs of solar power&quot; then it is a rep of the Neandertalers-Industry in full smokescreen operation mode.<p>These discussions are a great example for how propaganda works.<p>It does not make sense to calculate the &quot;costs&quot; of freedom, independence and the health of your family.<p>Also the real costs of unresolved nuclear waste problems, huge wars for securing oil supply and the contamination of our ground water by primitive fracking techniques are... titanic.<p>We need more young people in the US to take over the general political and economic discussion. Old and greedy neandertalers are destroying the living environment of young people, not ok, must change.<p>Homo sapiens, sapiens (!), take over please...