Solar cost to rival coal in 10 years

[Karls48 (Karl)]

I don’t care how we are going to produce electric power, as long I can afford it. At present it is becoming big financial burden for me. I’m retired and living on pension.
When cost of electricity will become burden for rest of the population, all this controversy about solar versus nuclear, carbon and environment will become irreverent. Majority of people will want affordable electricity and if the government of that day is not able to provide it, it will get kicked out

[bojan]

Originally Posted by renormalised

.... and they don't have the power to do it. They can only confine it for a few seconds at the most.

Actually they do..
The problem is, they are getting only 1% or so back, to be used for the next shot...

So the efficiency of current installations if actually negative.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by Karls48

I don’t care how we are going to produce electric power, as long I can afford it. At present it is becoming big financial burden for me. I’m retired and living on pension.
When cost of electricity will become burden for rest of the population, all this controversy about solar versus nuclear, carbon and environment will become irreverent. Majority of people will want affordable electricity and if the government of that day is not able to provide it, it will get kicked out

Ditto.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Originally Posted by Karls48

I don’t care how we are going to produce electric power, as long I can afford it. At present it is becoming big financial burden for me. I’m retired and living on pension.
When cost of electricity will become burden for rest of the population, all this controversy about solar versus nuclear, carbon and environment will become irreverent. Majority of people will want affordable electricity and if the government of that day is not able to provide it, it will get kicked out

I hear you Karl ..... I'm of the same mind.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by Karls48

I don’t care how we are going to produce electric power, as long I can afford it. At present it is becoming big financial burden for me. I’m retired and living on pension.
When cost of electricity will become burden for rest of the population, all this controversy about solar versus nuclear, carbon and environment will become irreverent. Majority of people will want affordable electricity and if the government of that day is not able to provide it, it will get kicked out

I really think that is a shorted approach
when you have the disasters like Japan I think it will take a lot more than the cost of electricity to convince the Australian public to go Nuclear.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by bojan

Actually they do..
The problem is, they are getting only 1% or so back, to be used for the next shot...

So the efficiency of current installations if actually negative.

Which means they don't have the power to do it...they don't have enough to keep it running. Plus they have trouble sustaining the containment fields in the tokamaks (for precisely that reason).

[Terry B]

I've been looking at the viability of putting a ~5kw wind turbine on my property. We are in a high wind area and there are other turbines on surrounding properties. The big stumbling block is the cost of cableling. The best spot for the tower is about 600m from my house where there are no trees.
The supplier of the turbine quotes an approximate cost of $80/m for underground cable. Above ground would require cutting about 200 trees down so isn't a choice.
This would cost $48000 just to wire it in plus the cost of the turbine (~$30000). This makes it non viable and a similar output solar cheaper. The lifespan of the solar panels isn't as good as the turbine and they produce less consistent energy. I don't want solar so the end result will probably be that we don't get a turbine.

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Too Many naysayers here spreading their pessimistic attitude bringing a general sense of negativity to this discussion.
!! Solar is doable and cost effective right now for every single houshold in Australia !!
System payback periods are 5-15 years at todays prices.
Unfortunately,the majority of Aussie power consumers prefer to Consume more and buy up endlessly. Like a new Plasma TV, Air-Conditioner, Car, Caravan, Astronomy Mount, Telescope, Computer, I-Phone, ...etc, etc,

The Australian Government hands out our TAX's to the dirty coal industry to the tune of $1.5 BILLION annually!
Invest that into solar energy instead and there will be a huge turn around in clean power!

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by astroron

I really think that is a shorted approach
when you have the disasters like Japan I think it will take a lot more than the cost of electricity to convince the Australian public to go Nuclear.

The Australian public won't go nuclear because it was hoodwinked by a very successful scare campaign by greenies and anti-nuclear activists back in the late 60's and 70's. Most of whom hadn't a clue at what they were talking about. It's not to say nuclear powerplants don't have their problems and such but it's a safer industry than what it was made out to be, despite of what's happened in Japan.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Originally Posted by bojan

David against Goliath...

Don't worry, you (neither me or anyone else here on this forum ) will ever outsmart them.

Bojan .... You could be right in your statement ..... but they need to get it in their heads ... that without " US " .... you and me and all the rest ....they would have NOTHING.

To price us out of reach of paying for power .....lowers their bottom line.

I for one .... will be happy to go back to candles .... I don't need a TV to survive or a computer .... my great grand father and those before him survived .... no washing machines or refrigerators .. etc.

It's all about determination to do without .... and what a person puts value on in life .... Can you live without your TV and all the so-called comforts of this modern age.

If it comes down to it.....I'm prepared to.

Cheers ... Colin.

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Terry B

I've been looking at the viability of putting a ~5kw wind turbine on my property. We are in a high wind area and there are other turbines on surrounding properties..........
This would cost $48000 just to wire it in plus the cost of the turbine (~$30000). ...

A 5kW 48-120V Westwind Turbine Price: Aprox $20,000
A 5Kw Turbine makes around $39,000 (todays prices) of electricity, or 180,000 kwh of electricity in average wind speeds of 5.5m/s. over 15 years.
So works out around $2,000 per year for power at todays prices

[Ric]

I'm looking to get solar and as much of it as soon as I can.

We have gas cooking and hot water on our farm but pay around $350 a quarter just to turn on the lights and watch telly. We also have to pay $65 a quarter for the availability charge.

It seems that every time I receive a bill the price has gone up.

[icytailmark (Mark)]

why cant we use more hydroelectricity? we are surrounded by ocean why not use it?

[bojan]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Which means they don't have the power to do it...

I just tried to rephrase your statement

[bojan]

Originally Posted by FlashDrive

If it comes down to it.....I'm prepared to.

Cheers ... Colin.

But all the others aren't.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by icytailmark

why cant we use more hydroelectricity? we are surrounded by ocean why not use it?

Errr.. how?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by GrampianStars

Too Many naysayers here spreading their pessimistic attitude bringing a general sense of negativity to this discussion.
!! Solar is doable and cost effective right now for every single houshold in Australia !!
System payback periods are 5-15 years at todays prices.
Unfortunately,the majority of Aussie power consumers prefer to Consume more and buy up endlessly. Like a new Plasma TV, Air-Conditioner, Car, Caravan, Astronomy Mount, Telescope, etc, etc,

The Australian Government hands out our TAX's to the dirty coal industry to the tune of $1.5 BILLION annually!
Invest that into solar energy instead and there will be a huge turn around in clean power!

It's not that simple, Rob. OK, we put solar cells on every house in Australia....what about the vast majority of where the power is consumed, by industry?? How are you going to power them 24/7, 365 days a year with consistent, reliable power??. Then, where are you going to get the all the silica sand needed to make these cells?? You need very pure silica sand to begin with to refine it to make the silicon, which requires a lot of power and is not an easy process. If you start mining where this sand is, you'll never hear the end of it from the conservationists etc. They're bad enough as it is about this. There's already problems in the US and such over solar powerplants and the env' lobby. And how much is it going to cost to mine this sand?? To do it reliably, you will need solar cells a lot more efficient than what's being used today, and to quote figures from labs is not going to cut the mustard because they're lab figures and not real world figures. Where is all this power going to be stored once it's created?? Batteries...hardly, especially with the technologies being used for batteries today. Then how long are we going to wait for an efficient, safe storage technology to turn up....5, 10, 15, 30 years???

Quite frankly I wouldn't prop up the coal industry either, but throwing money at solar isn't going to solve the problem either. It's not as cost effective as you might think. We need to approach the problem intelligently and with realistic expectations. Hobby horse solutions are only going to cause more problems than they solve and cost us more money than we can afford.

I would be the first person to say install a solar panel on your roof and so you should, but don't expect it to be the panacea of all our energy problems.

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Terry B

I've been looking at the viability of putting a ~5kw wind turbine on my property. We are in a high wind area and there are other turbines on surrounding properties. ......

Do you use an average 32.8 Kw a day ?
IMO I'd go smaller a Wind Generator say 3Kw + solar 1.5Kw for a more ballanced power generation.
After all it's not windy every day/night or full sun every day

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by bojan

To match the average rated power of a nuclear plant (600MW), taking into account 20% efficiency of the solar panels, we must use the area that delivers 3000MW !!

This is 2142857 m2, or square the size 1.4km X 1.4km.
Actually larger by a factor of 1.6 (to compensate for Sun elevation. So, 1.4 x 2.3km.
And this is only for a sunny day... high noon.
Now, remember 24/7......

Obviously, a scale problem.

Depends on how you approach the situation. Sydney, for example, has about a million and a half homes. Assuming a rather conservative house size of 100m^2, that provides 15 square kilometers of space above dwellings alone.

I don't understand why the 1.4 x 2.3km space you described needs to be a problem?

As efficiency improves, cost of installation comes down, and electricity prices rise, I think the trend to install solar panels on private dwellings will increase.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

The Australian public won't go nuclear because it was hoodwinked by a very successful scare campaign by greenies and anti-nuclear activists back in the late 60's and 70's. Most of whom hadn't a clue at what they were talking about. It's not to say nuclear powerplants don't have their problems and such but it's a safer industry than what it was made out to be, despite of what's happened in Japan.

Carl Tell that to the people of Japan who are sitting on a possible time bomb
and also to all the dead and deformed people from the effects pf Chernoble
Safe if you believe that Accidents don"t happen
A Nuclear power plant would cost in the region of a couple of billion dollars and take at least 5-10 years to build , and the big stumbling block Not in my backyard
Nuclear Power IS NOT SAFE Ask those Japanese people who have been told to move 80kms away from the site of the power station