Talk:Nuclear power/ArchiveSolar

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rolled-back edit on solar power

WRT the unsourced anonymous editor who claimed that solar power could replace gas consumption economically today, that is clearly incorrect. The only applications where solar can replace gas economically are passive solar building heating, and hot water heating (and for hot water, that's only true in the warmer parts of the world). For electricity generation, solar panels remain prohibitively expensive compared to wind, let alone gas. --Robert Merkel 00:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Robert -- Do your homework. Solar PV competes during hot summer days when electricity demand is at a peak. Building integrated solar pv competes at the point of use, not at the power plant gate: nuclear, wind and coal may cost 3 to 5 cents at the power plant gate, but the time they get to my meter, it costs me 6 to 10 cents. Currently, natural gas is used to generate most peak electricity demand. Installing solar pv during construction on a properly designed south facing (in the northern hemisphere) correctly sloped roof does result in electricity costs that are lower than generating the electricity with natural gas in many parts of the world. Note that the "warmer" parts of the world include most of the inhabited parts of the world: most of the US, Central and most of South America, Africa, Austrailia, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia, the middle east, most of Europe, ... Go look at tier 3 PG&E time-of-use rates: [1] when you include the 5% tax, you get $0.40/kwh. Electricity rates in Japan are higher. Electricity rates in Europe are comparable to slightly higher.

Additionally, you are not taking into account price volatility for natural gas. Remember that Solar PV and solar thermal compete with natural gas over a 30 year period.

Also, you might try to argue that over much of the world natural gas prices or whatever are sufficiently low that Solar PV is too expensive versus natural gas. However, over much of the world the electricity distribution infrastructure is non-existant and expensive and Solar PV competes successfully with the infrastructure.

Also note that the current article is going out of its way to ignore Solar PV as a competing technology. The argument that renewables require storage technologies and conventional baseload generation doesn't require storage is absurd. Hydro pumped storage was not developed as an electricty storage technology so that intermittent wind and solar could be used -- it was developed so that baseload nuclear and coal could be used during the day.

The reason nuclear is not being developed isn't that a bunch of crazed greens keep it from being developed. The reason is that it simply costs too much. It will take 10 years to build a plant with newer technologies that are believed to be cost effective and to prove that those technologies really are cost effective. During that same period of time, the costs of solar PV will drop in half (at least). France and Japan generate significant amounts of electricity from nuclear, and yet electricity costs about as much in France as it does elsewhere in Europe, and Japan's electricity costs significantly more. -- Chuck Simmons

Chuck, nice expose. Its a good point you make that the likelihood of a new-built nuclear plant being competitive against the downward slope of renewable energy over the useful life of the plant are what is preventing fair market interest in nuclear plants. Also your point about storage being a requirement for both nuclear and coal is persuasive - so often the pro-nuclear lobby (of which many editors here appear to be card-carrying members) often try to pin the cost of storage on wind power when making price comparisons. Thanks for correcting the record. Benjamin Gatti 03:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A few random points:

The installed cost of solar is not going down, Chuck. It is rising -- just like all other construction costs are rising. Rankine-cycle solar troughs are the cheapest solar energy mining machines, and they are not getting cheaper.
Solar PV for homes is a political marketing tool. It has nothing to do with providing economically-competitive and reliable electrical power service. All of your neighbors have to pay when you dump your solar PV power into the grid. You have to pay when one of your neighbors dumps solar PV power into the grid.
Generation-III nuclear plants (AP-600/1000) are standardized and engineered for a build time of 36 months, not 10 years.
Nuclear power needs a formidable competitor, and the clearest candidate is Clean Coal. It would be helpful for nuclear power if solar power were somehow able to compete with it, but solar is not up to the task. If the sun's flux were 100 times as high as it is now, maybe it would be a different story. --hitssquad 14:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

The construction cost argument doesn't work. Building integrated solar PV replaces existing construction costs (installing a roof) with equivalent construction costs (installing a roof that generates electricity).

Solar PV for homes is not a political marketing tool.

I agree that I probably exagerated build time of nuclear plants.

Off topic. I didn't argue that Solar PV can or should compete with nuclear. I pointed out to some nuclear advocate that they can't claim no renewable technology can reduce natural gas consumption in the next 10 years. Chuck Simmons 02:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Conventional baseload generation does not use significant storage. From Grid energy storage, There is over 90 GW of pumped storage in operation, which is about 3% of global generation capacity. All other forms of grid energy storage are negligible, and 3% is a negligible amount of the total generation capacity. pstudier 04:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The need for storage arises not because the baseload supply is inconsistent - but because demand is inconsistent. Were we to include the storage potential of existing hydro-power plants - which indeed are used in calculating storage requirements - the amount of stored energy might approach 20% - hardly trivial. Add to that the fact that global capacity is not even half of average consumption, the percent of actually consumption which is dispatched on demand from hydro, battery, spinning reserve, super-caps, and flywheels is quite high indeed - to which we can add all loads which may be negatively dispatched (DSM) and perhaps as much as 50% of energy transactions involve some degree of storage, a significant percentage of which is longer than the four - five hour peak window. Benjamin Gatti 04:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to agree that there is not significant baseload generation. The point, however, is that current storage technologies are not being developed in order to support renewable energy. They are being developed in order to time shift baseload production. -- Chuck Simmons

Benjamin's point about "demand is inconsistent" is well phrased. In California, the Energy Commission published a report pointing out the importance of working harder to align demand with supply. In California, we will continue to introduce various pricing measures (time of use meters with good pricing policies) in order to shift demand away from periods of peak demand. The CEC (California Energy Commission) points out that a significant amount of electricity consumption is used to pump water. Giving the correct price signals to water pumpers will help shift demand to better align with consumption. CEC integrated energy policy report. -- Chuck Simmons

Read this article. If renewables were anywhere near cost-competitive with gas, why are renewable energy providers in Australia shutting up shop because the government isn't increasing the mandated proportion of electricity that must be generated with renewable energy? If it was cost-competitive, or even close, it wouldn't need subsidies (you'd even take a little bit higher cost now on the basis that carbon taxes will almost certainly be imposed within the life of the plant). In any case, virtually all the new-build renewable energy in Australia is either wind or biomass (burning gas from rubbish dumps). --Robert Merkel 04:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You have to look closely at the word "subsidy" in the context of solar PV. Solar PV is cost effective to society as a whole (via reduced costs for transmission lines and reduced costs for electricity during peak usage). However, current marketing mechanisms make it very difficult for the person who puts up the capital to recover the money money that society saves. The way regulators are moving is to offer a fixed price for electricity generated during periods of peak demand (day time) on the usage side of distribution lines. We haven't gotten the rules written in quite that neutral of a way, but since PV generates electricity during periods of peak demand on the correct side of the transmission lines, it's pretty darn close. -- Chuck

It strikes me as strange that anyone would object that the article spends too much time not talking about solar and too much about other (non nuclear) power sources. This article *IS* about nuclear. As to the claims above, some of them are just wrong and others specious. You cant say PV is competative and the support it by saying it is competative on hot sunny summer days. You have to average the cost over the pay back period and then extended life of the instalation (that includes winter and days when it rains). [written by dalf, 5:08, Chuck inserted following paragraph]

I can if I understand economics. Solar PV produces most of its electricity during the day and during the summer when electricity is worth 40 cents per kwh. Solar PV produces some additional electricity during sunny days in the winter when electricity is still worth more than it is at night. Additionally, much of the cost of electricity is in transmission and distribution systems whose cost depends on *peak* demand and in running inefficient peak generators. Because solar PV produces electricity during periods of peak demand, it has very good economics. -- Chuck

Solar PV produces most of its electricity during the day and during the summer when electricity is worth 40 cents per kwh. That is one half of an argument, Chuck. Can a solar mining facility selling some of its mined ore at $.40/kwh pay for all of its costs, including interest and replacement power? You need to show your math. I think you should also specify that you are talking about distributed solar PV, if that is the case. (Also, please create an account, sign in, and sign your posts with four tildes in a row -- which will print your sig and a datestamp. I would have put this on your Talk page, but since you do not have an account you do not have a Talk page.) --hitssquad 00:58, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[This is way off topic, but I'm not the nuclear advocate who unthinkingly slandered all forms of renewable energy as being incapable of reducing natural gas consumption.]

It's clear from the context that I'm talking about "distributed" PV. Besides, centralized PV isn't economic. :-)

I do not have to show that Solar is cost effective including replacement power for when the sun don't shine. The reason for this is two-fold. First, for the next 5 years Solar will not penetrate the market enough for there to be any replacement costs. Second, if nuclear doesn't have to include those costs, then I don't -- more specifically, current replacement power (switched natural gas fired power plants and hydro) exist in order to provide "replacement" power for nuclear during the day time. (And third you don't need "replacement" power -- solar produces during peak periods of demand which is on hot sunny days -- on cold, overcast days, electricity consumption is lower.)

Remember that I'm arguing that grid-connected Solar PV designed into new construction is economically cost effective today for society as a whole (in selected regions of the world including Japan, Germany, California and New York -- I'm not arguing that it's cost effective in Canada or Australia). This means that to perform the cost/benefit analysis you need to include the following: cost of building additional transmission capacity -- solar pv doesn't need transmission; cost of building additional peak generation capacity -- solar pv generates during peak usage; reduced costs of electricity during peak demand periods due to a lower ratio of demand versus supply; reduced costs of natural gas. Any analysis of Solar PV should include its economic value of being a hedge against volatile electricity prices.

It's also quite reasonable to argue the value of Solar PV being Green. (SMUD [Sacramento Municipal Utility District] has shown that green electricity is worth at least 10% more than non-green electricity.) It's reasonable to argue learning curves: investments in Solar PV today to stimulate production will be paid back in a few years -- when you are ready to buy PV, the cost will be lower than it would have been without the investments. However, you do not need to use these arguments to show that PV is economical.

Now, in order to do the math, I do not have to show that it is economical to put Solar PV on any randomly chosen roof in California. The solar PV industry cannot produce that many modules today. All I have to do is reasonably argue that there is a market niche sufficiently large to consume the panels being produced where solar is cost-effective in that niche. That is, I can invoke rich people with big air conditioners who are exposed to tier 4 PG&E residential rates and who just want to install enough solar so they aren't exposed to those very high rates. [And I'm going to use that argument so that I don't have to compute the monthly production of solar and the payback of summer versus winter.]

Okay, with those preliminaries out of the way, here's some math. The model that I'm going to use is that I can invest $N in solar, or I can put it into some other random investment. I will look at the after tax return I require on the non-solar investment so that, at the end of 30 years, I've paid all my electric bills and have no money left. I'm going to assert a bunch of numbers here. You will have to provide your own references.

Assume nominal electric rates will increase 2% per year (less than the rate of inflation -- see the EIA for historical rates and projected rates). Assume that PV can be installed on a new house that was designed to support solar PV on a properly oriented roof at a cost of $6/Wp. [I derived that figure by knowing that a modest array can be retrofitted to an existing roof for $7.5/Wp and assuming 10% less for being building integrated and 10% less for volume installation in a tract of houses by a contractor.]) Assume that this properly oriented roof generates 45,833kwh/Wp over 30 years. [That bizarre number is derived from the known production capabilities of an existing low-slow west facing roof multiplied by 10%. It works out to an average of a little over 4 hours of sunshine per day.] Assume modest array size of 2.4KWp. The total cost of the array is then $14,400 and it generates 110,000 kwh of electricity. (Thus, you can lock in a price of $0.13/kwh for the next 30 years -- this is the tier 1, non-seasonal PG&E rate for electricity in California including tax.)

Most of the electricity by far that this system generates will be generated during summer peak hours when PG&E tier 3 rates (including tax) are 40 cents per kwh. Since I assumed a heavy electricity consumer that can offset tier 4 rates, I'll ignore the extra cost of tier 4 rates and also ignore the lower cost of electricity produced during the winter. Assume that you will collect interest on your non-solar investment and get paid at the end of the year, at which point you will pay for your electricity consumption during the year. (With PG&E net metering, you mostly pay at the end of the year.) Using those assumptions, your investment in solar PV is equivalent to a 10% *after-tax* return on investment for electric prices of a bit less than $0.36/KWh.

And note that electric rates in Japan are much higher than those in California, which explains why the Japanese are ending "subsidies" this year. Chuck Simmons 02:59, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for creating a Wikipedia account. If you could give me more details about where your assumed numbers came from, I think that would be helpful. I assume 45,833kwh/Wp is supposed to be 45,833kwh/kWp. I think the word system makes more sense than the word array to refer to a homepower system. Some of your numbers don't seem right to me. Figuring an average year-round daily production of 50kwh for the solar warrior's system, and scaling down from his 36.7kWp to our hypothetical system's 2.4kWp, I get a total electrical energy production of 50kwh x 365 days x 2.4kWp / 36.7kWp = 1,193.46 kwh/year or 35,803.8 kwh/30-years (vs. your number of 110,000kwh/30-years).

It is questionable to me that one could buy/install a turnkey solar PV homepower system for $6/Wp. The PV modules alone are running close to $6/Wp. I will figure $10/Wp turnkey-installed with integrated roofing and other cost savings such as tract housing. That brings us to $24,000 initial outlay for the system. A 5% discount rate compounded annually brings the system cost-of-ownership subtotal up to $103,726.62. The cost per kwh (neglecting the insurance cost, maintenance cost, repair cost, and other costs of ownership) is $103,726.62 / 35,803.8 kwh = $2.8971.

I could not find with Google california tier rates that were anywhere near 40 cents/kwh, and I found quite a few sites with information from various California utilities. The prices, if I recall correctly, were around 12 cents to 25 cents (tier 5 for the latter). I suppose you were including delivery, and you did mention taxes. Using your figure of 36 cents/kwh average price of the electricity (which I suppose already includes the 2% annual rate increase -- though doing so is going to hurt my interest calculation since it mean artificially high interest will be charged for the early part (the very worst part since the interest compounds) of the 30-year period), the electrical energy charges avoided for the first year would be .36/kwh x 1,193.46kwh = $429.65. Plugging that into the Moneychimp interest-calculator and adding an additional $429.65 every year, we get a total of $31,829.65 energy charges plus interest deferred from our bills.

This is assuming the system is worthless after 30 years, or perhaps the decommissioning cost is equal to the scrap/parting-out value, but subtracting the $103,726.62 cost of ownership from the income of $31,829.65 shows a loss of $71,896.97 ($2.01/kwh). Even if we assume the $24,000 system is still worth $24,000 after the 30-year ownership period is over, the loss would only be reduced to $47,896.97 ($1.34/kwh). (We don't need to run it for 30 years to see if the venture is economic, by the way. It should be easy to see, after running the numbers for just a 1-year scenario, whether a profit position or a loss position is being established.)

You posted some other economics comments with your numbers. I will respond to those. --hitssquad 08:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

In fairness to nuclear energy - I suggest that we must take all of the investments and subsidies granted to both nuclear and solar, then add interest, than consider the nest egg required to keep watch over nuclear waste for 100,000 years and you begin to make a fair comparison. Economists who ignore government subsidies don't deserve to be called economists - they're simply bookkeepers. You've used a lot of numbers in your case, but you've ignored by far the biggest numbers, so it's weak. I believe the truth is that nuclear energy is worth more to governments because it poses a bigger threat to its neighbors. Consider the irony of the President announcing in the same speech that we will increase reliance on "clean safe nuclear" while announcing that we are sending Iran to the Principal's office for attempting to do the same. Benjamin Gatti 14:33, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, in dicussing the economics of nuclear one must discuss the economics of alternate technologies. The current write up pretends that Solar doesn't exist. It says things like "many renewables are intermittent and should take into account the cost of backup" (paraphrased). While wind is probably intermittent and competes as baseload power, that is not "many renewables". Methane from waste is not intermittent. Geothermal isn't intermittent. Solar may be intermittent, but it competes with switchable natural gas supplies and directly reduces natural gas consumption, and hence should not be charged for "backup" capacity. These gross generalizations serve nuclear proponents no good purpose. -- Chuck

It might be worthwhile to more carefully restrict the discussion to nuclear versus wind versus coal versus baseload natural gas over the next ten years or so and carefully leave "most renewables" out of the equation. And if someone can sneak *fusion* into this article, then I sure as heck can put Solar in. -- Chuck

Also The reason nuclear is not being developed isn't that a bunch of crazed greens keep it from being developed. The reason is that it simply costs too much. is wrong in that nuclear is being devloped. There are currently 368,352 MWe of nuclear power installed globally, with 18,816 MWe (5% increase) actually under construction , 42,707 MWe (11.6%) ordered or being planned, and 82,220 MWe (23%) proposed. That does not strike me as a technology that people have decided is too expensive. To be honest I personally would love to see all that money get put into subsidies for PV on peoples houses, and for research into better PV/other renewable, but just because I personally think that in the long run that would be a better way to spend the money does not mean that the math works out to make it more cost effective NOW. I think you are probbly correct that the cost of PV is likley to drop dramatically in the next decade, but it is still a gamble for people investing billions. If it was a sure thing then I bet all the money woudl head that way now. Dalf | Talk 05:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I concede that I used my typical US-centric thinking instead of a more appropriate world view. -- Chuck

Some countries are investing in nuclear plants - but no free-market investments are being made. All free investors are investing in renewable energy - mostly wind and solar. The storage argument, which is made in this article - is arguably specious, and I think therein lies the relevance of this dialogue to this article. Arguments about subsidies are frustrated by the huge head-start nuclear has already achieved under heavy subsidies. To presume a subsidy-free result, one must expose renewable energy to the same subsidy-driven acceleration over the same 50 year period of development, and few doubt that wind would in fact be cheaper than nuclear energy in a fair race - some argue it is winning even the heavily rigged race. Benjamin Gatti 05:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Benjamin, I wasn't discussing wind, I was discussing solar, which was the specific edit I removed. --Robert Merkel 06:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

"If renewables were anywhere near cost-competitive with gas, why are renewable energy providers in Australia shutting up shop because the government isn't increasing the mandated proportion of electricity that must be generated with renewable energy?" I think that is you just three paragraphs up with a ref to a wind article. Solar is behind wind on average cost - while solar has the advantage of peak demand alignment and distributed generation. One point we haven't covered is the potential savings derived by not upgrading over utilized distribution systems by the implementation of Solar. I think Chuck has made some excellent points. Benjamin Gatti 06:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, solar has peak demand alignment. Spot power gets sold on something pretty closely approximating an open market on the east coast of Australia - see National Electricity Market. So there's nothing stopping generators installing solar to meet their mandatory target, with a higher cost but the opportunity to take advantage of solar's peak outputs being nicely aligned with the market peaks. Despite this, solar installations are negligible compared to wind energy. I can only draw the conclusion that solar, on current PV prices, is simply too expensive. The only solar power getting installed in Australia is in very remote areas, or by householders who are doing so for non-economic reasons and are presently being heavily subsidised to do so. Without that subsidy (which will end in 2007), people selling solar power in Australia believe that the market will disappear. Please find me a counterexample where people are installing solar cells a) for economic reasons, b) are currently on the grid, and c) aren't getting a huge subsidy from a government to do so. --Robert Merkel 06:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Too easy. Japan does not provide a huge subsidy. And, again, you miss my point. Society provides a subsidy for solar because society realizes that it is cost effective to install solar. Current mechanisms used to price electricity do not make it easy for the investor in solar to recoup the monetary advantages to society for that investment. You don't build solar in a green field if you want it to be economical. You don't retrofit it on top of existing buildings that aren't being remodeled. You build in the solar starting when you architect the house (to make sure you have a correctly sloped roof that points toward the sun, and you put solar on the roof instead of conventional roofing materials. Then you sell the resulting electricity on the spot market. But wait! Individual residences aren't allowed to sell into the spot market! And wait! Time of use meters with net metering aren't widely deployed! So, here we have a case where it sure would be nice if I could pay you a small amount of money to put solar on your roof because it reduces my cost for electricity, but the existing market won't let me. "Subsidy" is a dirty word, but in this case, it is economics in action. -- Chuck

This report says "To meet rising demand for electricity in California, utilities (and in turn, ratepayers) will either need to invest in expensive transmission upgrades, improve energy efficiency, or develop local resources. Solar PV delivers power during peak demand times when it is most needed. Studies have shown that it is cost effective for utilities to invest as much as $2,200 to $4,500 for every kilowatt of solar power developed in lieu of other capital investments." -- Chuck

The reason Australia doesn't use solar is because you have lots of gas. Thus your costs for peak load electricity supply are low. -- Chuck

Ok, then, let's look at California. Here's some prices I found on the cost of grid-connected solar power systems. They're *way* above even your $4,500 per kilowatt price; even the biggest unit there (which with economies of scale you'd expect to be the cheapest) produced about 6.5 kilowatts peak for roughly $45,000 (plus installation). Let's see: that works out to a bit over $6,900 per kilowatt. Well over your $4,500 price...and let me quote from that report you cited - "A buy-down grant of $2,800 per kilowatt of installed solar capacity in 2006 would enable solar PV to generate economic benefits for many buyers of new homes in California while compensating homebuyers for the societal benefits resulting from their decision." In other words, the government has to pay nearly half the cost to make it worthwhile for people. --Robert Merkel 11:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Which - when compared to the government having to pay 90% of the long-term costs of securing nuclear fuel under armed gaurd for a billion years may seem to be a bargain. Benjamin Gatti 19:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Robert -- you didn't understand what I wrote. It is cost effective for utilities to pay a rebate of up to $4500 per peak kilowatt. The total installed cost of a peak kilowatt is much higher. $7500/kwp is not unreasonable. The government (you and me) thus pay the installer $2800 for benefits that we receive that are worth $2800 to us. The installer can then profitably afford to install PV. Now, this is the 3rd time I've attempted to explain to you that this form of subsidy is societies attempt to restructure an inadequate pricing system so that the overall benefit to society can be captured. The benefit that you and I acquire from the installer is that we get to buy electricity from the installer during peak times of usage on the correct side of transmission lines at relatively modest rates. Additionally, we are buying reduced consumption of electricity during peak times of usage so that we don't have to pay for additional transmission lines nor additional generation of electricity using inefficient peak generators. [There are additional less economic benefits.] It is cost effective for us to pay the installer money so that we can lower our electric bills. For society as a whole, the cost of solar is cost effective. The subsidies exist so that we can convince people to put up the capital so that we can benefit. Contrast this to a subsidy on wind or nuclear. We pay the wind or nuclear power plant some money so that our base load generation rates will be a little bit lower and then we turn around and pay some more money to build more transmission lines and peak generation facilities because we still need to handle the peak loads. With solar, we take the money that we would have paid for increased transmission lines and peak generation facilities and hand that money to the installer of the solar PV system. -- Chuck

Chuck, Since Nuclear is subsidized heavily in the form of a free-ride for liability insurance - which most other businesses must carry as a burden on the ratepayer, I wondered if you would consider that subsidy to be a simple wealth transfer for the well-connected or as you have said is the case for solar - a well-crafted solution to complex market failure? Benjamin Gatti 00:14, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Ben -- LOL. Ayup, Their subsidy is a "wealth transfer", mine is a "well-crafted solution". :-) Chuck