Australia: Wind Power is Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels and Solar is Right Behind

[CrusaderFrank]

Especially when the Aussis put a /ton tax on carbon....
But yes electricity can be made cheaply with wind power. My question is: What happens when the wind stops blowing? A coal plant has to come on line to keep the grid up. And you don't just push a button and start a coal plant. It takes about 24 hours from a cold start, from what I read, or about an hour from stand-by mode. The problem being stand-by consumes about 75% of the fuel of normal operation.

Figure out a way to store the energy produced by wind and solar and you have a viable technology.
Maybe it's using the power to make hydrogen for fuel cells and letting the fuel cells power the grid. Maybe it's what used to be done with some hydro plants when supply exceeded demand. They pumped water up hill to be stored for use in secondary hydro plants when demand exceeded supply. Horribly inefficient, but better than running coal plants in stand-by 16 hours a day.

I'm all for alternative energy. As long as there is gasoline for my motorcycle and diesel for my tractor, I don't much care how my electricity is generated.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sddb0Khx0yA]Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy - YouTube[/ame]

Hey Jackass, nobody is going to watch one of your stupid videos. Give us the video in 2 sentences.

Did you even watch it?

 

[westwall]

Buried within the report is this little missive....

'The study surveyed Australia’s four largest banks and found that lenders are unlikely to finance new coal without a substantial risk premium due to the reputational damage of emissions-intensive investments – if they are to finance coal at all.'

Which means that because of all the carbon tax BS that the Aussies have to put up with, the perception is now so bad, thanks to legislation, that the banks are charging huge surcharges to those buying coal which is driving the costs up even further.

In other words, yes, alternatives are cheaper when legislation is passed to make fossil fuels much more expensive than they actually are. This is a story?

Get used to it dummies. If these asshats get their way the world will be plunged back into a new dark age as electric grids fail.

 

[SSDD]

Watch Australia slide down the tubes if they actually proceed based on that bit of fantasy.

 

[Star]

Buried within the report is this little missive....

'The study surveyed Australia’s four largest banks and found that lenders are unlikely to finance new coal without a substantial risk premium due to the reputational damage of emissions-intensive investments – if they are to finance coal at all.'

Which means that because of all the carbon tax BS that the Aussies have to put up with, the perception is now so bad, thanks to legislation, that the banks are charging huge surcharges to those buying coal which is driving the costs up even further.

In other words, yes, alternatives are cheaper when legislation is passed to make fossil fuels much more expensive than they actually are. This is a story?

Get used to it dummies. If these asshats get their way the world will be plunged back into a new dark age as electric grids fail.

Cherry-picker,

"Buried within the report"? meaning it's in the 5th paragraph of the article (-pewsh!-) right below the 4th paragraph (how'dja missit?) which reads:
"The study shows that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of [$80 per megawatt hour in Australian dollars], compared to [$143 per megawatt hour] from a new coal plant or [$116 per megawatt hour] from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.…"


It doesn't take a financial genius to figure out why the banks see carbon investments as losing investments. And-----and the higher price of carbon doesn't even include the cost of the externalities that are fucking up human health and the health of the planet.

.

 

[westwall]

Buried within the report is this little missive....

'The study surveyed Australia’s four largest banks and found that lenders are unlikely to finance new coal without a substantial risk premium due to the reputational damage of emissions-intensive investments – if they are to finance coal at all.'

Which means that because of all the carbon tax BS that the Aussies have to put up with, the perception is now so bad, thanks to legislation, that the banks are charging huge surcharges to those buying coal which is driving the costs up even further.

In other words, yes, alternatives are cheaper when legislation is passed to make fossil fuels much more expensive than they actually are. This is a story?

Get used to it dummies. If these asshats get their way the world will be plunged back into a new dark age as electric grids fail.

Cherry-picker,

"Buried within the report"? meaning it's in the 5th paragraph of the article (-pewsh!-) right below the 4th paragraph (how'dja missit?) which reads:
"The study shows that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of [$80 per megawatt hour in Australian dollars], compared to [$143 per megawatt hour] from a new coal plant or [$116 per megawatt hour] from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.…"


It doesn't take a financial genius to figure out why the banks see carbon investments as losing investments. And-----and the higher price of carbon doesn't even include the cost of the externalities that are fucking up human health and the health of the planet.

.

Cherry picking? This is the CAUSE of renewables being "more competitive" silly person.
If I have a product that costs 10 bucks and you have one that costs 12, but you get the government to regulate my product so that it costs more, who's cheating?

And, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, many of the Australian politicians are invested in renewables......go figure...

 

[Old Rocks]

Especially when the Aussis put a /ton tax on carbon....
But yes electricity can be made cheaply with wind power. My question is: What happens when the wind stops blowing? A coal plant has to come on line to keep the grid up. And you don't just push a button and start a coal plant. It takes about 24 hours from a cold start, from what I read, or about an hour from stand-by mode. The problem being stand-by consumes about 75% of the fuel of normal operation.

Figure out a way to store the energy produced by wind and solar and you have a viable technology.
Maybe it's using the power to make hydrogen for fuel cells and letting the fuel cells power the grid. Maybe it's what used to be done with some hydro plants when supply exceeded demand. They pumped water up hill to be stored for use in secondary hydro plants when demand exceeded supply. Horribly inefficient, but better than running coal plants in stand-by 16 hours a day.

I'm all for alternative energy. As long as there is gasoline for my motorcycle and diesel for my tractor, I don't much care how my electricity is generated.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sddb0Khx0yA]Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy - YouTube[/ame]

Hey Jackass, nobody is going to watch one of your stupid videos. Give us the video in 2 sentences.

Did you even watch it?

Of course you are not going to watch a professor from MIT outline some new technology. You would rather watch some nut talk about your hollow moon.

 

[Old Rocks]

Buried within the report is this little missive....

'The study surveyed Australia’s four largest banks and found that lenders are unlikely to finance new coal without a substantial risk premium due to the reputational damage of emissions-intensive investments – if they are to finance coal at all.'

Which means that because of all the carbon tax BS that the Aussies have to put up with, the perception is now so bad, thanks to legislation, that the banks are charging huge surcharges to those buying coal which is driving the costs up even further.

In other words, yes, alternatives are cheaper when legislation is passed to make fossil fuels much more expensive than they actually are. This is a story?

Get used to it dummies. If these asshats get their way the world will be plunged back into a new dark age as electric grids fail.

Cherry-picker,

"Buried within the report"? meaning it's in the 5th paragraph of the article (-pewsh!-) right below the 4th paragraph (how'dja missit?) which reads:
"The study shows that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of [$80 per megawatt hour in Australian dollars], compared to [$143 per megawatt hour] from a new coal plant or [$116 per megawatt hour] from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.…"


It doesn't take a financial genius to figure out why the banks see carbon investments as losing investments. And-----and the higher price of carbon doesn't even include the cost of the externalities that are fucking up human health and the health of the planet.

.

Cherry picking? This is the CAUSE of renewables being "more competitive" silly person.
If I have a product that costs 10 bucks and you have one that costs 12, but you get the government to regulate my product so that it costs more, who's cheating?

And, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, many of the Australian politicians are invested in renewables......go figure...

Gee whiz, Walleyes. You cannot even read a simple post, let alone a scientific paper. Did you not notice that the carbon price, the wind mills are 14% cheaper than new coal, and 18% cheaper than new gas.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy - YouTube

Hey Jackass, nobody is going to watch one of your stupid videos. Give us the video in 2 sentences.

Did you even watch it?

Of course you are not going to watch a professor from MIT outline some new technology. You would rather watch some nut talk about your hollow moon.

Yeah, like these clowns

You only read AGWCult News, but the last Moon as a natural satellite theory took a critical hit when it was discovered that the Moon was formed from the Earth and only from Earth with no other body involved....Big Whack Theory is Dead

 

[Samson]

“The fact that wind power is now cheaper than coal and gas in a country with some of the world’s best fossil fuel resources shows that clean energy is a game changer which promises to turn the economics of power systems on its head,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in a statement today."
.

Indeed, show me a large desert island sparsely populated with sheep farmers, and I'll show you a place where wind power is a "game changer."

However, its still a very, VERY long way from "turning the economics of power systems on its head," whatever that means.

I have no doubt that the CEO of Bloomberg NEW ENERGY FINANCE wishes this would happen in the foreseeable future, however, with the expanding populations of increasingly industrialized nations, power systems are going to demand much more energy.

 

[Old Rocks]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

You mean for sailboats?

 

[Samson]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

You mean for sailboats?

Or congress.

 

[westwall]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

Of course it will, the fraudster in chief wants it too so new power plants of ANY kind are basically verboten. It's easy to be the biggest growing group when the others are not given permits.

Gosh you guys are such fools.

 

[Old Rocks]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

Of course it will, the fraudster in chief wants it too so new power plants of ANY kind are basically verboten. It's easy to be the biggest growing group when the others are not given permits.

Gosh you guys are such fools.

Gosh, you are such an obvious liar.

 

[SSDD]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

This is the most up to date graphic of US electric production I could find. I doubt that there has been any serious change since 2011. Maybe wind went up to 2.91. New power? That is the only way to draw attention to wind generation as it ammounts to just about squat. How many raptors, migratory birds, and bats did that minute spark of energy cost?

 

[skookerasbil]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

This is the most up to date graphic of US electric production I could find. I doubt that there has been any serious change since 2011. Maybe wind went up to 2.91. New power? That is the only way to draw attention to wind generation as it ammounts to just about squat. How many raptors, migratory birds, and bats did that minute spark of energy cost?

Saigon thinks the dark blue is "solar"

 

[Samson]

Wind provided more new power in the US in 2012 than any other source, and will do so again in 2013.

This is the most up to date graphic of US electric production I could find. I doubt that there has been any serious change since 2011. Maybe wind went up to 2.91. New power? That is the only way to draw attention to wind generation as it ammounts to just about squat. How many raptors, migratory birds, and bats did that minute spark of energy cost?

Saigon thinks the dark blue is "solar"

You wouldn't think that this graph would be necessary for anyone except the blind or completely ignorant or some shut-in resident of their parent's basement.

Go outside. Drive around.

How many windmills do you see?

How many coal trains do you see?

How many companies provide services to extract fossil fuels do you see?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

.
In Australia, Wind Power is Already Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels and Solar is Right Behind

Jeff Spross
11 February 2013

According to the latest research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, electricity from wind power can now be supplied more cheaply in Australia than power from either coal or natural gas — and solar and other forms of renewable energy aren’t far behind.
.

Do you understand that adding exorbitant taxes to fossil fuels and then using government subsides to get people to by wind and solar power doesn't actually make fossil fuels more expensive than wind power. In fact, in the end, it actually makes everything more expensive.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Renewable energy now cheaper than new fossil fuels in Australia | Bloomberg New Energy Finance

“It is very unlikely that new coal-fired power stations will be built in Australia. They are just too expensive now, compared to renewables”, said Kobad Bhavnagri, head of clean energy research for Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Australia. “Even baseload gas may struggle to compete with renewables. Australia is unlikely to require new baseload capacity until after 2020, and by this time wind and large-scale PV should be significantly cheaper than burning expensive, export-priced gas. By 2020-30 we will be finding new and innovative ways to deal with the intermittency of wind and solar, so it is quite conceivable that we could leapfrog straight from coal to renewables to reduce emissions as carbon prices rise.” he added.

Before that time, clean energy investment will be driven up, and power sector emissions down, only with the support of Australia’s Large-scale Renewable Energy Target. Despite compelling economics for new-build renewables today, Australia’s fleet of coal-fired power stations built by state governments in the 1970s and 1980s can still produce power at lower cost than renewables, because their original construction cost has now been depreciated.

“New wind is cheaper than building new coal and gas, but cannot compete with old assets that have already been paid off,” Bhavnagri said. “For that reason policy support is still needed to put megawatts in the ground today and build up the skills and experience to de-carbonise the energy system in the long-term.”

Aren't you one of the idiots that insist that government regulations do not make things more expensive? Are you now touting the fact that regulations more expensive as an argument in favor of having more of them?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Gas from Asia is stupidly expensive in Australia, but that price will collapse in 3 years, plus they have a carbon tax.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, even if the "Carbon Tax" didn't exist wind power would still undercut fossil fuels and-----and PV isn't far behind, and that doesn't even take into account the cost of externalities that carbon supporters can't seem to comprehend.



"Australia currently charges polluters $23 in Australian dollars per metric ton of carbon they emit, but the study concluded that wind power would still undercut fossil fuels even without that correction of the market’s failure to properly build in the costs of carbon pollution:"



"Relying on fossil fuels to produce electricity is getting more expensive because of the government’s price on carbon emissions imposed last year, higher financing costs and rising natural gas prices, BNEF said. The cost of wind generation has fallen by 10 percent since 2011 on lower equipment expenses, while the cost of solar power has dropped by 29 percent.

“The fact that wind power is now cheaper than coal and gas in a country with some of the world’s best fossil fuel resources shows that clean energy is a game changer which promises to turn the economics of power systems on its head,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in a statement today."
.

They're lying, and also ignoring all the other taxes on fossil fuels in Australia.