Fossil Fuel Subsidies Six Times Renewable Subsidies

[Drewish]

I actually agree with subsidizing distributed solar and nuclear power plants in the name of national security. Wind is a dead end though.

[mistermack]

Pappa, I agree that we've thrown pots of money at nuclear, but comparing it to renewable energy isn't like-for-like.
There were military motives as well as power. And the knowledge gained will always be there in case we need it.
With wind and solar, the potential gains are not the same. Having said that, the British govt. has made a mess of all of it by being half hearted. Now we will have to buy nuclear plants from the French, and wind from the Germans.

Renewables are great, in certain places. Somewhere windy and sunny could easily survive now, with battery backup. The only trouble is that you double up on plant costs, at least. If that means that the plant has a longer life, then that might not be so bad over the long term. But you also have have to have more manpower, if you have more than one system.

Nuclear can do it all, but it's the over-the-top precautions for disposal of low-risk waste that makes it uneconomic. But at least most of the cost in the UK would be paying UK workers, not paying for imported gas and oil and coal. If the money is spent in the UK, it goes round and round, and the govt. gets a lot back in tax and jobs.

[Cormac]

Actually, wind energy is getting quite close in cost to coal and gas, with all subsidies removed.
Where it can't compete, is in being readily available and predictable.
However, there is actually a good ECONOMIC case for wind generators, in areas that are hard to supply with coal and gas or mains electricity.

Especially so for projects that don't require instantly available power. Some contracts can be written so that they can take surplus energy when it's cheap, like when the wind is constantly blowing, and can then wait till it's cheap again. Power hungry industries like steel furnaces can and do time their consumption to take advantage of power surplus.

I'm not particularly a wind energy advocate, but I have to admit it's getting a lot closer to viability, with the price rises of fossil, and the improved efficiency of wind generation.

If the technology is sourced locally, it certainly helps the balance of import/export payments.

The thing about this criticism of wind is that it supposes that wind power can't be stored, and therefore wind power is completely reliant on the wind actually blowing.

This is not true.

Stored Hydro, powered by wind is a combination of mature technologies that allows wind power to provide energy on demand at peak moments. It also allows wind derived energy to be smoothly delivered even during periods of low wind, no wind, or even where the wind is too high.

[Cormac]

This type of solar installation can provide power 24 hours per day.

[Warren Dew]

I think the contrary would be a better idea. Pour public money into renewable R&D like we did nuclear R&D. The potential future payoff is huge.

The U.S. did not pour much money into commercial nuclear plants. They did pour a lot of money into Navy nuclear plants, but that has paid off in terms of more capable submarines and reduced lifetime operating costs for aircraft carriers.

Now, France might have poured a lot of money into commercial nuclear, but weren't those nuclear plants publicly owned? If you have a publicly owned electric utility, sure, put money into whatever you want. That's now how the electrical system works in the U.S., though.

The truth is, for wind, the main roadblock in the U.S. is not R&D. The main roadblock is that the good sites for wind power plants are the NIMBY folks that don't want windmills visible from their back yards. Unfortunately, the best sites for wind power are flat windy areas, which are generally visible from a lot of back yards.

[Seth]

Probably has a lot to do with the fact that fossil fuels are a thousand times more efficient and cost-effective at actually meeting the energy needs of the public.

Citations or shut the fuck up.

Er, no.

[Schneibster]

Probably has a lot to do with the fact that fossil fuels are a thousand times more efficient and cost-effective at actually meeting the energy needs of the public.

Got some evidence?

Yeah, physics. If you dispute it, demonstrate how that solar panel on your house is going to operate your motor vehicle with anywhere near the efficiency, convenience and cost-effectiveness that gasoline does. (and when you get to the "solar panel recharge of your EV" please explain how that's going to help you when you're driving from Chicago to LA and your fossil-fuel created Lithium-ion battery pack goes flat after 40 miles...)

Da Schneib sees nothing that justifies a three-order-of-magnitude claim. Just another lie. And nothing to back it up again.

BTW, you do realize that "fossil fuels" are nothing more than stored sunlight, right?

With no carbon in them at all, right? Duh.

[Schneibster]

Every subsidy dollar is a dollar out of someone else's pocket that makes their energy cost more.

Good, yet another way I can hurt the fossil fuel industry and help keep the planet from burning up. Thanks for telling me, Seth.

[Schneibster]

I actually agree with subsidizing distributed solar and nuclear power plants in the name of national security. Wind is a dead end though.

It was, but they found out they're doin' it rong. Some guy arranged his rotors different and multiplied the efficiency by ten, and made it pretty much bird-proof (it doesn't kill birds or bats anymore).

[Schneibster]

The U.S. did not pour much money into commercial nuclear plants.

On Earth, we have the National Laboratory system in the United States. And nuclear technology dissemination was restricted by US law.

Maybe you forgot.

[Schneibster]

Probably has a lot to do with the fact that fossil fuels are a thousand times more efficient and cost-effective at actually meeting the energy needs of the public.

Citations or shut the fuck up.

Er, no.

Yeah, that's what we figured.

[Seth]

Pouring more public money down the rathole of wind and solar power is a complete waste of time. The technology is not mature and it's not ready for prime-time...

I think the contrary would be a better idea. Pour public money into renewable R&D like we did nuclear R&D. The potential future payoff is huge.

Only if the technology being developed has any actual chance of solving our energy needs, which neither solar nor wind do. The problem is that they both only address one aspect of the energy conundrum, which is residential, commercial and industrial electrical energy. And the fact is that we are tied to fossil fuels for transportation and will be for at least 50 to 100 years after completely viable alternative transportation energy sources are available, which they may NEVER be. We may well run into theoretical limits on energy storage density for vehicles very soon, if we haven't done so already.

We're still stuck with "what do you do when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine" conundrum, and fossil fuel will be in our energy future, particularly for vehicles, for at least the next century, there's simply no way around that.

Not really. We already have pretty effective means of storing electricity, ones that we use in conjunction with nuclear and fossil fuel plants already, such as pumping water up to higher altitude reservoirs during the night and generating electricity from it via hydro in the day.

And we have thousands of streams and rivers which could theoretically be dammed to provide 100 percent of our electrical needs. However, there are other considerations than just energy when it comes to hydroelectric generation, and the social "conscience" at the moment favors DISMANTLING dams and reservoirs and returning rivers to their "natural" condition, so that's not really a solution at all.

There's no reason why the same couldn't be used in conjunction with renewable energy. The quality of batteries has also improved significantly in recent years. Successful trials have already taken place that used batteries with wind turbines to provide abundant power to small (village sized) communities with no energy downtime. One I read about in Australia generated enough to sell some to the grid in addition to providing all the power the village needed.

Many things are possible in the microcosm, in a small village where energy use can be tightly controlled and lifestyle adjustments are made to live within the available energy budget that are not possible, or likely, on the macrocosmic scale as applied to major population centers. It's highly unlikely that any but the most draconian sort of regulation and intrusive government monitoring are going to be able to substantially change public use of energy, and people simply won't stand for having their electronic lifestyle taken away from them by a bunch of econuts for abstract philosophical reasons.

Left alone, the free market will either support or destroy wind and solar depending on it's utility and cost-effectiveness, both of which have been badly skewed by imprudent funneling of public money into scams like Solyndra.

The free market can't afford the costly R&D of trialling lots of new designs.

Indeed.

They don't have the money or time required to reap the benefits.

Precisely.

Nuclear didn't rely on the free market to get where it is today.

Which is why it costs so much to build a nuke plant in the US.

If public money hadn't been thrown at nuclear in astonishingly huge amounts, we'd not have nuclear power today because no private enterprise would risk such an investment.

Not necessarily true. In fact, had government stayed out of it (ie; not needed nuclear energy for war, which is what jump-started the industry) nuke plants would probably be safer, cheaper and more efficient than they are today because market dynamics and competition would make it so.

Developing more cost effective renewables would almost certainly be cheaper than the amount we spent on nuclear energy.

But no one has identified a renewable energy source that can be exploited any time in the near future that can replace even a small fraction of our energy needs. At the moment, all the solar and wind we have in the US supplies 2 percent of our energy needs, and the investment in infrastructure alone that would be required to completely replace coal, gas, nuclear and hydroelectric generation would beggar the world's economy for a century. The sunk costs we've already paid make it extremely difficult to change the course of power generation quickly. That's a reality we have to face...we simply don't have the trillions of dollars it would cost to retrofit every rooftop with solar panels and build enough wind generators (assuming the enviros and NIMBYs would allow it in the first place) to replace our other sources, and we never will. It will be at best a very gradual, century-long conversion process to reduce traditional energy sources, but it will be a long, long time before there is any possibility of a complete changeover, so we shouldn't be throwing money that can be used to make what we've got better, more efficient and cleaner on pie-in-the-sky schemes like Solyndra.

[mistermack]

Actually, wind energy is getting quite close in cost to coal and gas, with all subsidies removed.
Where it can't compete, is in being readily available and predictable.
However, there is actually a good ECONOMIC case for wind generators, in areas that are hard to supply with coal and gas or mains electricity.

Especially so for projects that don't require instantly available power. Some contracts can be written so that they can take surplus energy when it's cheap, like when the wind is constantly blowing, and can then wait till it's cheap again. Power hungry industries like steel furnaces can and do time their consumption to take advantage of power surplus.

I'm not particularly a wind energy advocate, but I have to admit it's getting a lot closer to viability, with the price rises of fossil, and the improved efficiency of wind generation.

If the technology is sourced locally, it certainly helps the balance of import/export payments.

The thing about this criticism of wind is that it supposes that wind power can't be stored, and therefore wind power is completely reliant on the wind actually blowing.

This is not true.

Stored Hydro, powered by wind is a combination of mature technologies that allows wind power to provide energy on demand at peak moments. It also allows wind derived energy to be smoothly delivered even during periods of low wind, no wind, or even where the wind is too high.

Of course this can be done, but the problem is lack of efficiency and capital cost.
The capital cost of this type of storage and generation is huge, and it only gives back a small proportion of the energy stored.
ie, it's only practical in a few places where the capital costs have already been spent, and where the extra power can't be used in any more economic way.

[Tyrannical]

This type of solar installation can provide power 24 hours per day.

What is that, Solar Two in the Nevada desert? It was rated at 10MW but produced under half of that on average. Pretty expensive way to generate electricity, and not even a lot of it. You'd need 4 or 5 thousand of them to power a city like LA.

Oh well, it would keep the squeegee wielding homeless population busy cleaning it.

[mistermack]

This type of solar installation can provide power 24 hours per day.

What is that, Solar Two in the Nevada desert? It was rated at 10MW but produced under half of that on average. Pretty expensive way to generate electricity, and not even a lot of it. You'd need 4 or 5 thousand of them to power a city like LA.

Oh well, it would keep the squeegee wielding homeless population busy cleaning it.

That's not so bad then. All power generation involves maintenance work.
At least that way the expenditure goes into the domestic economy, not into imports.

And generation efficiency improves all the time with experience and research, so you can't judge a system by a prototype.

And an edit update, I just looked at the new solar one on Wikipedia.
Bigger and better :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One