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Originally Posted by sendler
As I said, We need to realize that there are many things to consider beyond the quote of a cheap wholesale price from solar somewhere. There are huge govenment rebates and tax incentives and huge feed in tariffs available to solar that contribute to these news stories. And then there is also the fact that the solar installs are not held responsible for the cost of guaranteeing their supply to avoid blackouts. Every area with a high percentage of rebuildable energy adoption has seen electricty prices increase. Solar can be really good for daytime cooling peaks with smart grid control of thermostats but still requires high tech thermal storage to time shift by 6 hours to get through the evening. But it absolutley can't replace a baseload grid.
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EIAA projects India to be burning 2.4X more coal in 2050 than 2010.
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China has enough coal gerneration with slowing growth and is downwind from it's own pollution so it's companies have taken their engineering to the world market to build out coal in other countries.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/c...te-change.html
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1600 new coal plants are planned world wide. I'm not rooting for coal. But energy growth is economic growth. And underdeveloped countires want to join us in standard of living. Refuse to be left behind. And rebuildables are expensive and can't provide a baseload. |
Absolutely! Only when we've had a taste of all available data will we be able to make an intelligible decision about anything.
Oil and gas has enjoyed an Oil Depletion Allowance far a long time.States like Oklahoma tax oil production right in the oil patch,then turn around and tax every gallon of finished fuel at 17-cents/gallon at the pump.
Many a state's annual revenue comes from the oil patch.And you'll see their elected and appointed client representatives often defending their patron in Congress.It dates to at least the Roman Empire.Perhaps before Sumar.
Incentives are nothing new.And they're a way to 'say' something without actually speaking words.
Having a market basket of energy providers,with distributed capacity,sharing a grid across latitudes and longitudes appears to be the preferred path.
There will always be sun shining somewhere,and wind.Day connected to night and vice versa.
According to the EIA,in 1995,the cost of fuel constituted only 16% of the cost of a kWh.Perhaps there's some rationalization to be had in distribution costs.