Quote:
Originally Posted by Occasionally6
Perhaps I could put it like this: At the current time, in terms of direct costs, extracting and burning fossil fuels as energy sources is generally cheaper to do than it is to obtain the equivalent energy from renewable sources.
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I disagree.
This very well could be true in some places ... but it will not be true in others ... because the cost per "equivalent energy" will vary ... for both sides ... the various types of fossil fuels and for the various types of RE... they aren't all fixed costs and outputs , etc.
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But just for one out of millions of possible examples:
PV
It broke to under $1/Watt years ago ... that is not even current time today technology anymore.
That $1/Watt PV that also carries with it a ~80% power warranty for the first 20 years ... Although the rate of PV power loss over time is logarithmic and not linear ... we don't even have to give it that ... we can incorrectly assumed a faster linear loss of power ... and it still is far more massive than people think.
For every 1 Watt of PV ... getting a yearly average of just 5 Hours of Sunlight per day ... incorrectly assuming the faster linear loss rate ... would still be producing ~33 kwh over the first 20 years , ~47kwh by the 30th year , ~61kwh by the 40th year, ~73kwh by the 50th year ... etc.
Now let's look at that "Equivalent Energy" part of it.
To Move a RE-BEV ~80% of the harvested RE gets to the wheels.
To Move a Fossil Fuel ICE ~25% of the harvested Fossil fuel energy gets to the wheels.
In the first 20 years ... during the warranty period the $1/Watt PV harvested about ~33kwh ... 1 Gallon of Fossil fuel like gasoline ICE gets about ~9kwh of energy to the wheels... so unless you are buying your 1 gallon of fossil fuel for ~$0.30 per gallon ... the fossil fuel is significantly more expensive for "Equivalent Energy".
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Now there are other metrics that RE doesn't do as well with ... but for "Equivalent Energy" ... RE wins by a significant Margin.