Solar cheaper than nuclear

The graph I provided is a daily output, and there is no easy way to see any other day's graph except the previous day in the renewables report page. I suggest looking again on a weekday.

Show me a battery with a replacement cost which is less than the cost of the equivalent grid electricity it can discharge in its lifetime.

Of course if grid electricity prices rocket (due to technically illiterate eco wankers and politicians refusing to build viable large scale generating capacity) anything can happen.

ng

The easiest way to make any one technology competitive is by kneecapping the others.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

They do not have more courage. They're just less democratic.

They might be more Democratic in fact, but they're less democratic.

So

I think that's an annual US-ish average, but here's the definitive source:

-- Cheers, James Arthur

subsidize

it.

Is the electricity taxed?

True but largely irrelevant. The US has lots of desert, and - with the advance of global warming - will probably soon have even more. This land is useless for anything except solar power generation and super- conducting cable means that the power generated there can be used pretty much anywhere.

Photovoltaic cells are useless at night, but thermal solar can heat up loads of molten salt during the day and use it to keep generating power overnight.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

True but largely irrelevant. The US has lots of desert, and - with the advance of global warming - will probably soon have even more. This land is useless for anything except solar power generation and super- conducting cable means that the power generated there can be used pretty much anywhere.

Photovoltaic cells are useless at night, but thermal solar can heat up loads of molten salt during the day and use it to keep generating power overnight.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

It's easy to tell when solar becomes economical...

when the factory that makes solar panels has them on the roof and uses them to power itself..

Mark

And the factory making nuclear power plant elements has its own nuclear reactor for just that purpose.

.It's easy to tell when solar becomes economical... . .when the factory that makes solar panels has them on the roof and uses .them to power itself.. . .Mark

And stays in business.

tm

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No, it is there because demand varies during the day. That isn't going to change. Solar - as has been pointed out - provides power during the day precisely when the air-conditioning system are at their greediest.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

ate

ting

A scheme well-illustrated by the oil industry, which dictates that the US has an immense and expensive "defence" forces, paid for by the tax- payer, to protect US-exploited oil fields around the world.

The same subsidy, re-directed to sustainable domestic energy sources, would kneecap the US oil industry. Sadly, the kind of military or commercial intelligence that might appreciate this is in short supply, and James Arthur is one of the people least likely to understand the point.

He probably thinks that it is right and natural that the US spends as much on "defence" as the next ten countries down the pecking order put together. Historically, the top nation spent as much as its two closest rivals, but the US managed to invent the military-industrial complex, and the oil companies, like the banana importers before them, are happy to exploit this irrational extravagance.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Germany is talking about building massive solar generation in the Sahara, and shipping the power north on ultra-high-volage DC links. Super-conducting cable has yet to be mentioned, but it would seem to offer even lower losses per kilometre.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You have to be joking. Nuclear power is heavily subsidized. Just look at Price-Anderson. Can you imagine what insurance would cost for a nuclear plant if there wasn't limited liability? Then there is the DOE, which provides research for the nuclear industry for free.

Nuclear power is pure socialism.

at

As if we ought to put all our power generating capacity in poor Muslim nations (again). Asking for trouble or what?

So what would the $1tr pissed into the Iraqi sand have bought?

Yo dawg, I herd you like power plants, so...

Tim

Hardly "pure" socialism. Government has its legit functions.

I kind of like the mini-reactor idea,

but it would surely take government action to overcome public fears, analogous to the cell phone antenna situation.

Some issues are so big that government can't avoid being involved.

But actually, if we ignore the carbon crazies, we have plenty of natural gas and coal for a long time.

John