
New Wind, Solar Power Cheaper Than Nuclear Option, Study Shows - ph0rque
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-16/new-wind-solar-power-cheaper-than-nuclear-option-study-shows.html
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Jweb_Guru
The problem with wind and solar is not, in the long run, their cost (nor the
energy they can provide). It's their inability to provide a reliable baseload
during times of low (wind|sun)--hence, while they may work well for some or
even the majority of power usage, their ability to completely displace more
traditional power sources is mostly limited by available storage technology.
While some relatively recent developments (e.g. organic flow batteries) look
promising in that region, at the moment the best available low-cost option on
a mass scale is pumped storage, and once you take into account the engineering
effort required to create and maintain enough infrastructure to actually
replace a sizable percentage of our current on-demand power needs (easily
serviced by fossil fuel-based power) with pumped storage, you quickly realize
that it is excessively cost-prohibitive. While it may be technically possible,
it would take significant (and historically, unfeasible) political willpower
over a sustained period of time to devote a nontrivial percentage of the GDP
and workforce to their construction. As a result, I see nuclear power getting
phased in more and more as baseload over the next hundred years (along with
coal). Again, it doesn't need to be cheaper than wind and solar, but cheaper
than oil and gas--wind and solar can't do what nuclear power does.

