From a friend: Nuclear is great, but until wind is killed it will not be viable bc of dispatch protocols. When wind is on it takes priority in the queue because it's cheaper in marginal terms, but the integration costs of wind are not factored in. These costs include backing down other resources, such as gas, coal, and nuclear. These technologies are not designed to operate this way; hence there are operational and financial issues arising from this dispatch protocol. The real costs are never seen, but they do exist.
The other issue with wind is the production tax credit (PTC. The PTC allows wind developers to actually bid negative prices. PTCs are a cancer and are destroying the reliability of the grid. Exelon bought the John Deere wind assets realized this too late. They brought this up with AWEA and were voted out of the organization at the behest of NextEra. NextEra is the largest renewable provider in the US and its holding company partner is Florida Power & Light (FP&L). There are very few renewables in Florida bc FP&L won't allow it. Corporate hypocrisy at its finest.
The climate change/global warming predictions are based on models. Models. Any possibility that a model attempting to replicate an infinitely complex and ever changing system and then predict what that system will do in the future could be off? completely wrong? by how much?
There are numerous analyses floating around, including some by high-profile investment banks, that purport to show that wind/solar are now cheaper than gas, or even coal. The way these analyses are done is to calculate the capital and operating costs of the generation facility, including some analysis for cost of capital, and divide it by total kwh generated over the facility's lifetime, giving a cost per kwh. The problem is, this method doesn't include the reality that a kwh generated at one time is not the same thing as a kwh generated at some other time. Electricity doesn't store well, and this seems to be difficult for people to grasp.
What happens as 'renewable' generation increases is that fossil capacity largely still has to be there, for reliability, but has a smaller output to prorate its costs against, since it won't run when the conditions are favorable for the wind and / or solar, which has no incremental fuel cost. The whole system becomes considerably more capital-intensive.
From a friend: Nuclear is great, but until wind is killed it will not be viable bc of dispatch protocols. When wind is on it takes priority in the queue because it's cheaper in marginal terms, but the integration costs of wind are not factored in. These costs include backing down other resources, such as gas, coal, and nuclear. These technologies are not designed to operate this way; hence there are operational and financial issues arising from this dispatch protocol. The real costs are never seen, but they do exist.
The other issue with wind is the production tax credit (PTC. The PTC allows wind developers to actually bid negative prices. PTCs are a cancer and are destroying the reliability of the grid. Exelon bought the John Deere wind assets realized this too late. They brought this up with AWEA and were voted out of the organization at the behest of NextEra. NextEra is the largest renewable provider in the US and its holding company partner is Florida Power & Light (FP&L). There are very few renewables in Florida bc FP&L won't allow it. Corporate hypocrisy at its finest.
Let's not forget the environmentally unpopular yet consistent hydro power in your back yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam
The climate change/global warming predictions are based on models. Models. Any possibility that a model attempting to replicate an infinitely complex and ever changing system and then predict what that system will do in the future could be off? completely wrong? by how much?
There are numerous analyses floating around, including some by high-profile investment banks, that purport to show that wind/solar are now cheaper than gas, or even coal. The way these analyses are done is to calculate the capital and operating costs of the generation facility, including some analysis for cost of capital, and divide it by total kwh generated over the facility's lifetime, giving a cost per kwh. The problem is, this method doesn't include the reality that a kwh generated at one time is not the same thing as a kwh generated at some other time. Electricity doesn't store well, and this seems to be difficult for people to grasp.
What happens as 'renewable' generation increases is that fossil capacity largely still has to be there, for reliability, but has a smaller output to prorate its costs against, since it won't run when the conditions are favorable for the wind and / or solar, which has no incremental fuel cost. The whole system becomes considerably more capital-intensive.