Solar is the cheapest form of electricity generation to build

[wingnut771]

Even if it wasn't "cheaper", the world's propensity to massively under-estimate the cost and timeframe of mega-projects makes it more cost effective. It's also just so much easier to hide corruption in R100 billion coal/nuclear projects than in multiple, independent R1 billion renewable ones. I get that renewables are unpredictable but I'd rather wrestle with the unpredictability of weather than the predicable outcome of gargantuan, singular power generation projects.

and with electric cars on the horizon, this will solve the storage problem. Every house will have a 50kWh battery plugged into the grid.

 

[Petec]

"Eskom currently relies on coal-fired power stations to produce 90% of its electricity, while the remainder is made up of pumped storage, hydro, gas, nuclear, and wind generation."

Where does Eskom have gas power generation?

Landfill gas power generation, and projects like Brulpadda at Mossel Bay

 

[Yskasmetnstoof]

Gwede says COSATU says coal cadres says it not true so SA wil ignore it.

 

[Yskasmetnstoof]

Except the installed capacity of a solar plant isn't quite the same as a fossil fuel plant is it?
For example, a fossil fuel plant has a 99.999% chance of providing power at the evening peak, whilst a solar plant does not.

Solar power can only really be effective if you can space out the plants 2 or 3 timezones to the east of the timezone that you want to supply with power. Then the evening peak can be powered by a part of the earth that still has sunlight

Batteries.

 

[richjdavies]

Batteries.

Batteries, Hyrdo storage, gas turbines, Time of Use charges... All solvable. Just need to get out of the "demand is fixed" mind set.

Solar for the win.

 

[Johnatan56]

120 square kilometres for 10Gw? Yes that is a lot of production, but 120 Square kilometers?

How much area does a coal plant or nuclear take?
Include the mines and transport required, and nuclear fall-out area lost risk, and coal pollution risk if you look at Eskom's failure.

Also note those 120 km^2 is over a desert, that's not prime land, and it really isn't that large an area if you think about it, that's 12x10km.
To put that into context:

That's not that large an area, numbers are always fun, and you like distorting them.

That's 10GW at about R230bn.

That farm is at about $1.4m/MW, or $1427/kW or $1.427/W production (note that's full life-time cost, not based on average annual etc.). Note that the cost includes the transmission etc.
So it would be better to look at the levelized cost, and we're just in time for the 2020 Lazard report released last week:

Levelized Cost of Energy and of Storage 2020

Levelized Cost of Energy & Storage 2020 analyses are in-depth studies comparing the costs of energy and storage technologies for different applications.

www.lazard.com

Do you notice how the levelized cost of Solar PV is $31-42/MWh? So you can build quite a few of them for every MWh of Coal.
CSP = Solar Thermal Tower with Storage, that's ther $126-156 mark. Do you notice how it matches or is cheaper than nuclear's $129-198? That point 5 is cost if it's paid off construction etc., not new nuclear.

This is the current price history chart:

Solar over the last 2/3 years is currently in a bottleneck, there are quite a few major breakthroughs in the last year or two, so those should be hitting commercial markets probably in 2023 or so, they are set to reduce overall price by about 20/30% again while using less area due to higher efficiencies. Wind mostly has been working toward the direction of larger turbines/changes that help it produce power with less wind, etc. increasing the plant power.

For South Africa specific:

Do you notice South Africa in the listing? Do note that South Africa does have the issue that the average cost is a bit higher due to Eskom/government, should easily be able to compete with US pricing.

Note that CSP costs are a bit off, since there's not that many new builds in the world yet, just a few hundred MW new per year. Note wind price increase for a bit there is due to it including off-shore and depends on the projects world-wide for the year.

Here is the methodology in terms of levelized cost:

Dumb arguments? You mean ones where wind and solar don't cover peak times?

Solar PV is during sun up, wind picks up as the sun sets/rises. Your argument of no wind doesn't work, South Africa has a huge landmass, you'd not build all your wind farms in the same place and you'd over-provision (it's quite cheap power, you can easily build a few MW of power for every MW of coal, never mind nuclear).

Solar also includes CSP. Renewable also includes hydro. There's also not an argument for removing all of coal and nuclear overnight, it's called balancing a system.

Over the next few years electric vehicles will start entering the market proper, that will have a huge impact on how grids operate as then everyone can store/feed back into the grid during bursts of power while storing excess during off-peak.
[/quote]
A good balance is needed yes, but you cannot rely on renewables, otherwise you'd need peaking power stations to pick up the load during peak periods, which are 6am to 9am and 6pm to 9pm, times when the sun doesn't really shine.
[/quote]
What's the problem with peaking power? If solar and wind are substantially cheaper, then what's the issue with handling a couple of GW with natural gas at $150-190 for an hour or two a day?

Also wind isn't predictable and it can be seen in the daily figures from Eskom some days they can get a 1Mw of power from wind, some days barely a blip. A modern grid is the same as any grid, people still have peak times they do things. The only people who don't are people who work night shifts and their peaks will be early morning rather than early evening.

I'd love to know where you get those figures from, I highly doubt 1MW of wind power for 2.2GW installed capacity during the windiest months of the year for where their systems are installed (Sep-Dec) and no wind across the entire country (these wind farms aren't all in exactly the same place) are highly doubtful.

System Adequacy Reports

Do note as well that Solar and Wind usually balance each other out, bad weather = better wind generation, good weather = better solar generation. South Africa also has desert.

Now stop posting nonsense and back your statements up, that would be great. Both you and LazyLion have that habit, and links to newspapers that state load shedding due to: 1. UK side where their peak systems didn't kick in, 2. Germany where they're adding a voluntary renwable tax that is decreasing from next year and that that tax includes building new major grid lines connecting north and south, 3. Load shedding California with them turning off grid lines due to wildfires and lack of maintenance don't count, and must be a valid source.

Btw, CSP side:

From here: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ch...ted-solar-power-could-beat-lower-pric/574154/
Which correctly talks about issues with PV being cheap making it difficult to choose other power sources.

Most of CSP's lack of installation is due to that, there's only 6GW globally since most have coal and nuclear already, so they don't install CSP. You'll start seeing a lot more of it though over the next few years as e.g. China is starting to invest heavily into it, building 6 plants in the next few years.

 

[^^vampire^^]

Watched an interesting documentary a few weeks back about how solar is polluting the planet. Most of these mid-large sized solar projects decay rapidly and are never maintained, leaving solar part pollution, broken glass etc all over the place. Also, because solar has no good storage mechanism, energy companies need to supplement this during the evening. It's costly and adds more wear and tear to start up systems from scratch so most energy providers are running there coal/nuclear plants anyway. The outcome is higher costs for consumers as these solar projects are just there to make the companies look good but are a net negative to the business.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

An open cycle gas turbine is a combustion turbine plant fired by liquid fuel to turn a generator rotor that produces electricity. Liquid fuel which would unfortunately be diesel.

Solar has its place, but to say its cheaper is not proven yet, cheaper to build is one aspect, heres more that effects the consumer in the long run(Mr TIME).
1-Cost to maintain.
2-Cost to store engergy(night)
3-Cost to update.
4-Cost to upgrade.
5-Cost to replace.
6-Unknown costs for using it on a large scale like never before.
7a-Local authorities versus private installations, taxes raised for profit loss as a result.
7b-Mandatory willy nilly costs just for erecting such a plant small individual(off grid) or large scale.
8-THe long term effects of Physical Polution due to areas covered, the green goes full circle.
10-Costs of ownership changes after initial installations.
11-Costs when a sudden out of the blue ver effective smal easily powere plant becomes available, when money has not yet been recovered for solar installations.
12-Unknown costs for using it to replace coal & nuclear, and then find coal & nuclear has to be reinstituted all over again when knowledge had been untangled, longer term.
At the end of the day, the consumer cannot run away...

 

[konfab]

Batteries.

Right, so are said batteries included in the economic cost comparison?

Remember, nuclear power et al provides power 24/7. Solar provides power 8 hours a day if you are lucky. That has to be taken into account if you want a fair comparison.

 

[konfab]

How much area does a coal plant or nuclear take?
Include the mines and transport required, and nuclear fall-out area lost risk, and coal pollution risk if you look at Eskom's failure.

Ok then let's make it full including all waste, which includes the station parts. In terms of waste like that, solar doesn't do too well either, as you effectively need to pave a 120km^2 with solar panels every 25 years.


Nuclear power on the other hand, uses the most energy dense fuel we have ever discovered. To use a comparison, all the nuclear waste that the US has produced since the 1950s, could fit on fit on a football field at a height of 10 yards.

This number may sound like a lot, but it’s actually quite small. In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel

 

[Johnatan56]

Ok then let's make it full including all waste, which includes the station parts. In terms of waste like that, solar doesn't do too well either, as you effectively need to pave a 120km^2 with solar panels every 25 years.

About 95% of a solar panel is recyclable, so no.

Nuclear power on the other hand, uses the most energy dense fuel we have ever discovered. To use a comparison, all the nuclear waste that the US has produced since the 1950s, could fit on fit on a football field at a height of 10 yards.

https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel

Okay, now please tell me about all the mess-ups in nuclear waste storage vs solar waste storage.

Nuclear Waste Issues in the United States - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

By Luisa Kenausis, Scoville Fellow The problem of what to do with nuclear waste is largely unsolved in America. Many types of radioactive waste require disposal for tens of thousands of years, and the United States only has one facility engaged in permanent disposal of nuclear waste: the Waste...

armscontrolcenter.org

 

[wingnut771]

New power generation methods have been invented over and over again but the powers that be won't allow the status quo to change. Watch this documentary:

Sirius (2013) - IMDb

Sirius: Directed by Amardeep Kaleka. With Thomas Jane, Jack Auman, Corrado Balducci, Morgan Boardman. A documentary about the life of Dr. Stephen Greer, UFO secrecy, and existing energy technologies that could change the world as we know it.

www.imdb.com

 

[konfab]

About 95% of a solar panel is recyclable, so no.

And do you think it is recycled? Or just dumped at a convenient third world country?

And I might add that nuclear waste is also recyclable, it just isn't economically feasible atm.

Okay, now please tell me about all the mess-ups in nuclear waste storage vs solar waste storage.

Nuclear Waste Issues in the United States - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

By Luisa Kenausis, Scoville Fellow The problem of what to do with nuclear waste is largely unsolved in America. Many types of radioactive waste require disposal for tens of thousands of years, and the United States only has one facility engaged in permanent disposal of nuclear waste: the Waste...

armscontrolcenter.org

I don't have those numbers, but if you want to be fair, you need to scale all the numbers by how much power they generated in their lifespan.

 

[Spizz]

What's the problem with peaking power? If solar and wind are substantially cheaper, then what's the issue with handling a couple of GW with natural gas at $150-190 for an hour or two a day?

The current plan supported by the World Bank and included as a kicker to the Medupi and Kusile loans is 1.4GWh of battery storage at wind and solar plants by the end of 2023. The first tender closed last week at a wind farm on the west coast. That particular requirement is 80MW continuous throughput and 320MWh storage.

 

[Johnatan56]

And do you think it is recycled? Or just dumped at a convenient third world country?

There is currently recycling, issue is that it's more expensive to recycle than it is to use new materials, since solar is so cheap (in terms of materials) that recycling common materials is not generally worth it.

That's why legislation is being introduced to handle that, look at e.g. Europe's WEEE regulations.

Do remember that solar panels are relatively new, the mass waste issue will start in the 2030's, there's still quite a bit of time to become more a lot more efficient with waste disposal. Most of Europe's panels started early 2000's with mass adoption starting early 2010's and average lifespan is about 30 years.

Landfilling Old Solar Panels Likely Safe for Humans, New Research Suggests

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is to release research showing solar panels could be landfilled safely amid growing concern over the disposal of renewable energy components.

www.greentechmedia.com

Has a bit of:

The research was limited to the primary pollutant in each of the three biggest classes of solar panels today: crystalline silicon, cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). The pollutants studied were lead, cadmium and selenium, respectively.

“When we examined those, under the worst-case conditions, none of them exceeded health-screening thresholds, meaning they’re not deemed to potentially have significant enough risk that you’d want to do a more detailed health risk assessment,” Heath said.

And following the link and going through some of the reports:

End-of-Life Management: Solar Photovoltaic Panels, is the second of several solar-focused publications IRENA is releasing this summer. Last week, IRENA released The Power to Change, which predicts average costs for electricity generated by solar and wind technologies could decrease by between 26 and 59 per cent by 2025. Later this week, IRENA will release Letting in the Light: How Solar Photovoltaics Will Revolutionize the Electricity System – which provides a comprehensive overview of solar PV across the globe and its prospects for the future.

That was based on 2018 start. You can take those reductions and use them in solar panel recycling. And as said before, it's still a new industry, solar panel recycling will probably benefit a lot from new technologies that will be implemented, and there's still mass of scale to kick in.
Getting back to your post:

And I might add that nuclear waste is also recyclable, it just isn't economically feasible atm.

So it isn't then as nuclear itself is one of the most expensive power options in the world, adding "recycling" to that would be a tough sell.

I don't have those numbers, but if you want to be fair, you need to scale all the numbers by how much power they generated in their lifespan.

Should we also scale that the area is unusable for the next few tens of millennia? What about the barrels that were thrown into the ocean?

 

[konfab]

Should we also scale that the area is unusable for the next few tens of millennia?

The real funny part about you mentioning "tens of millennia" being the biggest threat means that you probably learned everything you know about nuclear power from Greenpeace.

The entire "dangerous" waste output from Koeburg's entire lifecycle is about 1280 tonnes. Which would take up less space than an Olympic sized swimming pool. That is miniscule compared to the size of the area that they allocate to plants.
https://www.eskom.co.za/Whatweredoi...uclearPowerStation/Pages/Waste_Reracking.aspx

 

[Johnatan56]

The real funny part about you mentioning "tens of millennia" being the biggest threat means that you probably learned everything you know about nuclear power from Greenpeace.

The entire "dangerous" waste output from Koeburg's entire lifecycle is about 1280 tonnes. Which would take up less space than an Olympic sized swimming pool. That is miniscule compared to the size of the area that they allocate to plants.
https://www.eskom.co.za/Whatweredoi...uclearPowerStation/Pages/Waste_Reracking.aspx

That would be a red herring again, I stated the length of time that the area is unusable, not the size of the area of the container storage.
Then you forget that there's leakage, many cases of it entering ground water and contaminating huge areas.