

Solar Energy Prices: This Is What A Disruptive Technology Looks Like - brianmcconnell
https://medium.com/armchair-economics/cbc9fdd91209

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mtowle
If something can be said for Mr McConnell's methodology here, it's that he
fully disclosed his assumptions, making it easy to identify the faulty one
that sent his analysis hurtling 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

Why are you measuring the efficiency of energy sources in dollars, Mr
McConnell? No, I don't mean to say Euros or Yen would have been better --
rather, that the reason you find yourself writing about the efficiency of
energy sources in the first place is that their efficiency and availability
has changed in recent decades and will change even more in decades to come,
yes? Which will in turn affect how you and your readers think about your
energy costs, correct? Ah.

But it will also affect how energy providers think about their energy costs,
won't it? If one of those lines on your graph goes spiraling up or down, it
will affect the other lines, won't it? And it won't affect them equally.

Solar panels can be as cheap as they want _while oil is cheap_. Will they
still be cheap when oil is expensive? When the cost of transport for the many
materials that go into their manufacture skyrockets?

There exists a better measure of energy efficiency than dollars per gigawatt.
It's called gigawatts per gigawatt. Input-output ratio. By that measure, as
everybody knows, oil kicks everything else's ass. Whereas solar power won't be
even be net-positive until 2020 according to Popsci, which, adjusting for
Popsci's track record on predictions, projects to around 2075-2100.

[http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/solar-
panels-n...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/solar-panels-now-
make-more-electricity-they-use)

Yes, you read that title right. Only as of this month did new panels stop
having a net-negative energy efficiency. If that's your idea of disruptive,
well, I advise you to quit reheating your Domino's with hydrogen fuel cells.

~~~
brianmcconnell
Except you missed the point, which is that solar PV systems have been posting
compounding gains in terms of power output per $ for 35 years. No other energy
source I am aware of is becoming ~15% cheaper per year. I'll assume that most
of the people here are familiar with compounding interest and its
implications.

The point isn't that solar energy is disruptive today, it's that it will be in
the not distant future. It's sort of like cellphone technology. It started out
as a niche technology that hardly anybody used (even in San Francisco circa
2000, I know eons ago, people outside the tech industry didn't use them, now
everyone has a smartphone).

I put my money where my mouth is on this, and retrofitted my pre-WWII home
with solar some eight years ago. Even then, the amortized cost of the solar
array was 50% less than what I paid to PGE for grid power, and I basically
have a net zero electric bill.

Maintenance? A couple times a year I go up on the roof and hose the panels
down to wash the dust and pollen off (no moving parts, etc). That and I make a
point to double check that a meter reader hasn't flipped the safety cutoff
switch. Other than that, I don't do a goddamn thing and my house generates
about 75-80% of its power.

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gus_massa
I don't understand why the oil price is so flat. Between the lower and higher
point the difference is like one "mouse-cursor" in my computer. The graph is
logarithmic, and the difference between the 200 and 300 marks is approximately
one "mouse-cursor". So we have a 3/2 variation in the oil price.

But, for example, in this graph
<http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1970.gif> (taken from:
<http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm> ) the minimum price is ~$15 and the peak
prices are ~$75 or ~$95, so the variation is at least 5/1.

~~~
brianmcconnell
I used annual averages from the EIA. This smooths out short term variations (I
am looking at a 30-40 year trend). Also be sure whatever price history you're
using is adjusted for inflation.

That said, even with short term price fluctuations, the decrease in solar
energy costs (100:1) trumps the variation in conventional energy commodities
(5:1). The point of the article is the long-term "moore's law" trend and how
that will play out over the next 10-20 years.

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IgniteTheSun
Even more so: <http://www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts/>

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senthilnayagam
Is there a algorithm or standard method for doing "inflation adjusted terms"?

~~~
brianmcconnell
The data I got from the EIA is inflation adjusted using the consumer price
index.

