
Solar power is now cheaper than nuclear - brkumar
http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NCW-SolarReport_final1.pdf
======
rvcx
No, it's not. The position paper (from an organization whose whole mission is
to push solar and get rid of nuclear) simply makes up a bunch of number.
<http://v.cx/2010/07/lying-about-solar>

~~~
kaitnieks
Also, this: [http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-
reportin...](http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2010/07/gullible-reporting-by-
new-york-times-on.html)

~~~
sasvari

      Pro-nuclear advocate
    

as the first post is pro-solar, this one is just the opposite. both posts are
nonobjective, there's still quite a lot of _religion_ involved in the
discussion.

~~~
rvcx
The top post is claiming something that is not true. The responses are
pointing out that the claim is bullshit, but they are _not_ making claims of
their own.

Suppose I were to claim that Sasvari owes me one trillion dollars, based on no
reliable evidence whatsoever, and Sasvari were to deny it, pointing out the
lack of evidence. Are both sides in this scenario equally "religious" in their
stances?

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lispm
Here in Germany we add half of this years world's photovoltaic solar panel
production. Much of that is installed by small consumers, houses, farms,
factories. This gets us away from the huge expensive centralized energy
production. Panel by panel.

A new nuclear power plant has not been built in he last twenty years and is
not planned.

Thus we can concentrate on bringing the price of renewable energy down.

The new reactors that are under construction in Finland and France are both
much more expensive than planned and are coming years late. France also has to
invest several hundred million Euros per reactor to keep them running. They
haven't done much for those - a full fifty reactors. Here in Germany we need
to spend some ten more more billion Euros on closing old East German reactors
and for cleaning up an experimental storage site for nuclear waste. That
experiment has failed. Spectacularly. Billions and billions that could have
been invested in clean and renewable energy.

~~~
confuzatron
Hmm. Except that ' _huge expensive_ centralized energy production' produces
electricity much more cheaply than the solar panels.

If this wasn't the case, the German government wouldn't need the _huge
expensive_ system of subsidies for PV.

By all means spend lots of money to encourage production of more expensive
electricity, but don't pretend it's cheaper.

~~~
roel_v
Can someone post numbers on the amount of subsidies that are given by the
German government? The Belgian system of paying out for each 1000 kW produced
is gradually being phased out; For those installed in 2008 and 2009 you got
450 euros, this year 350 and over the next few years this will decrease to 150
I think. Plus you can deduct a mortgage used to buy solar panels from your
income. I modeled this fairly extensively a few years ago and it turn out that
yields of 7% on the investment are expected. My parents are making more than
that because of lots of sunshine over the last few years and higher energy
costs so more savings. It's an awesome investment, and unparalleled in its
risk class.

~~~
mtr
I've done some consulting in the area but don't have any hard numbers at hand
right now. But basically, it's lots of money. If the subsidies are taken away
then the market collapses. Germany isn't the sunniest country in the world yet
was (is?) the largest market. Spain had a recent boom, which was followed by a
bust when the subsidies were removed.

France has been playing catchup in this area and they were proposing subsidies
that would reduce each year to better match reductions the cost basis of PV.
They were predicting ~20 years for solar to reach grid parity.

A more interesting debate is whether governments should be interfering in free
market forces to push some technologies over others.

~~~
roel_v
Oh sorry what I meant was more how much an individual can make on these
subsidies. I know the aggregate is significant and not in relation to the
immediate effects. I think it's also, on a rational level, quite clear that
the redistributive effects of the subsidies are of dubious nature and
politically motivated; every tax payer contributing to elevated savings yields
of those with 20k to spare or the creditworthiness to borrow as much ranges
from silly when one is in a forgiving mood to outright immoral when one is
not.

Maybe I was diverting the conversation, I was just pointing out that those who
installed PV panels in Belgium got a very nice yield on their investment. I
haven't run the numbers with the latest payouts and panel costs (PV panel cost
has come down significantly already over the last few years) so I don't know
the state of the art. I was interested in comparing subsidy schemes with other
countries.

(as an extra data point, the Netherlands provides only a fixed subsidy for PV
panels, and there's a fairly low ceiling to the total that can be paid out a
year; based on a first come, first serve system. The period to recuperate the
investment is about 20 years, which is quite long; in Belgium one can earn
back the investment in about 6 years and everything after that is pure
profit).

~~~
mtr
I apologize in advance for another short comment, but your reply leads to
another interesting point: should entities (individual, companies) be using
payback period as a criteria for investments? Everything I learned in b-school
pointed us towards using NPV as the best metric, but many entities still use
IRR or payback period. I'll try to follow-up tomorrow with some numeric
examples so you and everyone else can see the implications of various methods.
But the stuff I saw from calculations in France (the most generous market for
building-integrated photovoltaic installations) was on the order of 10 years.

Your 6-year payback seems a bit optimistic but I last looked into this stuff 8
months ago and things may have changed.

~~~
roel_v
No, payback period is a silly metric, and my 6 years do account for
opportunity cost :)

Actually I tried to make a product out of this. The website is still up on
<http://www.solar-profit.info/>. It's in Dutch but the screenshots speak for
themselves. I never sold a single copy, for one because my market is about 500
customers big, and second because I didn't manage to explain the concept of
time value of money to my leads (installation companies for PV panels).

So yeah that's the answer to your comment. Payback period everybody
understands, and that's the only thing it has going for it, but unfortunately
it's such a big advantage that you still need to use it if you want to
convince some markets.

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rbanffy
That's easy - you just impose expensive environmental regulations on top of
building nuclear reactors and, suddenly, solar power becomes cheaper. With a
couple iterations, even hamsters in cages will surpass nuclear.

How green is solar panel production, BTW?

~~~
dmfdmf
> How green is solar panel production, BTW?

The term "green" is probably too vague to answer that question. However, I
once read (a long time ago, so no link) an article on some research that
reported that EV solar was net-energy negative, i.e., if you add up all the
energy that went into producing EV solar panels and subtracted the energy
output over its expected lifetime it was negative. This is not true of hot-
water type solar just EV solar panels. Of course the conclusion rested on
numerous assumptions but they used conservative assumptions and argued that EV
is _not_ an energy source and would need some wild breakthroughs in reducing
the energy costs to manufacture or a huge jump in energy output efficiency
neither of which, as far as I know, has happened.

Edit: I got that reversed, Energy Output - Energy to make < 0

~~~
Retric
Times change, 50,000Hz Computers used to be top of the line and cost thousands
of dollars, but try selling such things today at those prices.

The value of electricity produced over a modern solar cell’s lifetime > cost
of that solar cell today so clearly they take less energy to produce than it
takes to make. However, ROI is more than just getting more money back than
something costs the payback time is important.

PS: Granted, Ultra high efficiency solar cells built for the space program
still cost a lot. However, they are producing energy _in space_ so the
incentives change.

~~~
rbanffy
dmfdmf's point is that it takes more energy to make a solar cell than it will
ever produce during its lifetime.

I am not sure his numbers are current (he made the disclaimer), but it has
nothing to do with energy pricing.

My worry is not whether photo-voltaic is net-positive, but whether the
production actually reduces pollution. For what I know, they are very close
cousins of computer chips and those factories were not particularly "green".

~~~
Retric
Energy is a complex topic, so calculating the actual energy costs to produce
something is hard because different forms of energy have different value. EX:
heat pumps don't generate energy even though they can output more BTU's than
an electric heater.

However, electricity cost to generate other types of energy works as a
shortcut to a lot of this stuff. So generally if something costs X$ to
manufacture it takes less energy than X$ worth of electricity.

As to being green; PV is not exactly a single technology with a single type of
environmental impact. Assuming you recycle the cells, PV can have a very
environmentally friendly footprint, but the factory must also take care to
avoid a wide range of pollution.

PS: It’s hard to talk about energy without using enthalpy, entropy, and other
thermodynamic concepts. If my point is not clear I can try a more detailed
explanation.

------
csf_ceo
In Australia, we have one of the cheapest electricity prices in the world.
Wholesale(national pool price) is about USD 65 per MWh + Network charges.

But Solar PV electricity is 1/3 cheaper than the Retail price of electricity
_WITHOUT ANY SUBSIDIES_.

The current Peak Retail price (Midday - 8.00pm)is circa USD 0.29 kWh
(Aust$0.32kWh) and the 'real' unsubsidised cost of solar PV is about Aust
$0.21 kWh.

With the current subsidies the price is _NEGATIVE_ $Aust 0.50 kWh (USD -0.45)

Yes, we get paid to produce through grants and a Feed in Tariff

~~~
stcredzero
If Australia is on the ball with infrastructure and government policy, your
little private continent might end up a bastion of energy stability in the
post peak-oil world! You have your own deserts with lots of potential for
massive Solar Thermal. Add some high-tech distribution, and you're in a very
enviable position.

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pragmatic
They sell solar panels in Menard's now, _freakin' Menards_ (A mid-western
version of Lowe's/Home Depot). I think they cost 300+ for 60 watts. I for one
would love to put a bunch of solar panels up on my house, just for the cool
factor.

Not to mention, centralized power is vulnerable. Terrorists, grid failure,
etc. Something so vital should be so centralized. I'm going to dub the coming
DIY power generation "Cloud Power", remember you heard it here first.

~~~
stcredzero
What the south needs now are cheap 12 volt AC units. Install some solar PV,
and have regulation circuitry that turns it on when the panels are producing
enough juice. This would still save a ton on summer AC power costs, but it
would be (relatively) cheap. (No batteries! You'd have to have a hefty
capacitor for startup surge power, though.)

------
nickpinkston
As has been pointed out this study is filled with a lot of stats and little
methodology. They assume that solar tech is getting cheaper and cheaper $/KwH
(quite valid), however they seemingly think that nuclear is frozen and the
tech costs are rising.

I think it could be argued that the lobbies subsidizing both sides are causing
each trend. Westinghouse wants subsidies so more plants are sold, however that
also increases the tendency to over-build. A friend of mine in their nuke
dept. said this very true. Compare western to foreign nuke prices.

Also, the green movement has every interest to encourage increasingly strict
nuclear regs that make it difficult to make new ones while they support solar
subsidies.

All of this leads to nuclear power going up in price while the tech remains
underutilized. This report shows these price trends, but does little to
elucidate the underlying causation in them.

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tocomment
Is solar still coming down in price? What kind of bothers me is even if the
panels were free it would still probably cost $10,000+ to have someone install
them on my house, thus I'll probably never be able to do it :-(

~~~
jodrellblank
What bothers you (in the present) is that if solar panels were free (they
aren't), it would probably cost (a number pulled out of thin air with no
research, therefore deliberately chosen to be high enough to annoy yourself)
to install them on your house, which you predict negatively that you wont be
able to afford ever.

Are you always this cheerful and optimistic? Have you considered ... being
happier?

~~~
tocomment
Wow, when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous :-)

I'll try to have more optimism for the solar industry .. maybe in general too.

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mikelele
This is a bunch of anti-nuke nonsense written by non-experts in the energy
field.

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Daniel_Newby
Base load.

~~~
akira2501
Also W/m^2

