Cost-Effective Renewable Energy Is Today’s Reality
Here’s something I wish every person on Earth could understand, i.e., how very, very close we are to a total migration from fossil fuels into renewable energy. This guy, in particular, speaks about the continuing free-fall of solar PV prices given technologies that are improving every day. Of course, this is the basic theme of my most recent book: Bullish on Renewable Energy – 14 Reasons that Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose.
The problem here really is disinformation, i.e., propaganda from Big Energy to the effect that renewables are tinker toys, that cleantech is a job-killer, etc. It’s all completely incorrect, but it’s constantly being shoved down the throats of all Americans.
Perhaps this, in turn, takes us back to our broken educational system.
The problem of intermittency still has not been solved. Therefore the cost of solving it cannot be know. Thus, the author’s cost projections cannot be objectively evaluated.
From his article:
“In the near term, a surprising amount of intermittency can be managed cost-effectively with gas turbine backup, and this works even as electricity sector carbon emission are pushed down to a third of today’s values. Looking further ahead, long-distance electric transmission can move solar power from good sites to demand centers and can reduce the impact of intermittency by averaging supply and demand across larger areas.”
Thus he is aware that the intermittency problem does exist. But dealing with the intermittency problem with gas turbine backup, as he suggests, surely is not an acceptable solution. Even if it is cost effective, as he asserts, and if CO2 emissions can be pushed down to one third, CO2 emissions would still be excessive. That is especially true considering that by the year 2100 global demand for power will probably increase by about FOUR TIMES as poor nations strive to lift their people out of poverty.
Realistically, as many climate scientists assert, we cannot reduce CO2 emissions sufficiently with current technology unless we use nuclear power. If at some time renewables become capable of doing the job without fossil fuel back-up, then we could phase out nuclear power as nuclear plants begin to exceed their useful life. Doing that, we would end up with 100% renewable power if it became practical. And, if it did not become practical, we would have reduced CO2 emissions to an acceptable level.
I’m fairly certain that the folks who are responsible for operating our grid are aware that solar is a variable resource, but that it has value nonetheless.
Yes, but the value is that installing PV and other renewable power is in avoiding penalties by the states if they don’t. Instead of requiring utilities to reduce CO2 emissions by whatever means, in at least some states they are required to instal renewable energy systems.
One renewable technology which has been in my view woefully short of research and development is geothermal heat and power – a natural and theoretically all but unlimited form of natural nuclear energy.
If research can improve the reliability of drilling by better understanding the local geology (reducing dry wells), so reducing the cost of prospecting, reduce the cost of deep drilling with improved drilling techniques, and cut the cost of engineered geothermal energy – adopting / adapting fracking techniques to create deep geothermal heat exchangers, then geothermal power can become viable in many more locations.
Unlike wind and solar, geothermal power is not intermittent, and in some cases, can be modulated to match diurnal demand variation.
I think that it would make sense to spend more on R & D for geothermal energy. Whether that would be successful is unclear, but it might pay greater dividends than we expect.
Hi Craig.
Many think as you do on this point, and I declare I am one of them. Renewable Energy Solutions [Off Grid and Micro grid] after all is our companies industry.
so I want to make a meaningful commentary back to your posting, before I do I would ask one question of you first because my posting will take due account of your response. So here is the question, its a simple one also.
You said “Here’s something I wish every person on Earth could understand, i.e., how very, very close we are to a total migration from fossil fuels into renewable energy.” My question to you is: please expand what you mean by the term renewable energy. And that’s it. I look forward to your response and then I will present my comments.
Thanks Craig
Lawrence
I don’t mean anything at all cryptic, only that the levelized cost of energy from solar and wind is falling so fast that it will soon obsolete fossil fuels.
That’s true, btw….., and there is not a goddamn thing that Big Oil can do about it.
It’s a question of precisely when this happens, and how much damage we will have done in the meanwhile.
If the cost of renewables has fallen so much that the cost is not much greater than that of fossil fuels, one would think that early users would be happy to use renewables and completely sever their connections to the grid. That has not happened yet except for the few who either have no access to the grid or who are so committed that they are willing to spend $thousands on batteries which have limited life.
It may become practical in the future if huge amounts of energy storage capacity become practical and economical, but assuming that it will happen is risky.
Going off the grid is generally not the most cost-effective move for consumers or businesses, though that could change some day.
Craig,
I can’t help wondering if your passionate crusade against “big oil” isn’t counter-productive.
The idea that evolutionary changes in technology must be reduced to a scenario replete with villains to hiss and hero’s to adulate, is a just little, well,.. distracting.
Don’t you think confusing left-wing activism with alternate technology becomes counter-productive since the rejection of the first may also lead to the rejection the second ?
All that passion must sooner or later arouse irrational fanaticism,(from extremists of both sides), and distract from co-operative, well-constructed progress.
Isn’t it better to strive for willing participation from all sectors of society ? Surely it must be obvious that any acceptance of change can’t be forced against the will of the vast majority in the centre ?
The majority will sooner or later resist what they perceive to be bullying. The rise of a troglodytes such as Donald Trump is largely due to the average persons rejection of alarmists and extremists. America is fortunate that it’s Donald Trump, it could have been a person with Trump’s popular appeal and agenda, but greater political skills and capacity for deception.
The average person does desire a better future, including a cleaner and safer environment, but they also need reassurance the pursuit of these goals will be conducted in a safe, orderly, reponsible and effective fashion.
The average person doesn’t want an existing crusade, filled with revolutionary risk and perils. Nor do they want a massive, disruptive social upheaval to conform to ideological fantasies.
I strongly believe that the best method of achieving environmental progress is by concentrating on achievable programs without too much political or ideological baggage.
The electricity grid is administratively divided into sectors with an entity called the balancing authority to maintain grid stability. Here in the Pacific Northwest the hydropower resources make responsive balancing agents. Elsewhere natural gas turbines have to be used.
Burning natural gas creates carbon dioxide emissions. This is not acceptable in a low carbon dioxide emissions world that we must have.
Fortunately, small modular nuclear power plants can be used as balancing agents against the vagaries of wind and solar generation. In particular, the Nuscale SMR units will be available from 2025. Then all the wind and solar generators can have backup with low carbon dioxide emissions.
It looks as though you are advocating a nuclear system that would have about the same capacity as wind and solar systems. If so, why build the renewable systems in the first place? Why not use only nuclear? Nuclear has an availability factor of about 90%.