20 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Here's something CP Rail is doing...

https://electrek.co/2022/01/20/canadian-pacific-railroad-expands-hydrogen-train-program-with-fuel-cell-purchase/

Noel

Looks like a subsidy to Ballard. I'm surprised they're still around.

Cheers!

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

Not a fair comparison Dave. The price of electricity hear isn't because its renewable, other factors are involved

There are infrastructure and maintenance cost for my electricity producer as well. 

46 minutes ago, Luke said:

I raised this specific point in the earlier thread - the "price" of electricity unless itemized is two things, the electrons themselves and a portion of the grid cost.

I recall that you talked about the grid cost but I don't remember the details.  I don't really care what portion of my bill pays for this or that.  What I care about is the final cost for me.  I'm paying a lot less than what Martin pays.  This could also be because he lives on a small island and everything likely costs more.  We know people in Italy who pay almost twice what we do for electricity.  When I lived in New Mexico I had the option to have a portion of my power come from wind, but it cost more per KWh.

Maybe that has changed and wind and solar power are indeed cheaper now.  I don't know.  Hopefully they are.  Again, I'm not against solar and wind power, but I want to be realistic about their advantages and disadvantages.

Dave

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

I don't really care what portion of my bill pays for this or that.  What I care about is the final cost for me.  I'm paying a lot less than what Martin pays.

If you're not going to care about the power/grid breakdown, then you're not allowed to make claims about his power being more expensive because you genuinely don't know - and what's worse you've just said that you don't want to know. Not sure how we can have a discussion if you willingly want to keep making apples to oranges comparisons.

And yes, if you're on an island with a submarine cable connection, your grid costs are likely to be substantially higher than someone in a dense urban area with multiple connections to a US power grid, like me. The only number that matters is the wholesale power cost paid by the utility - that evens out grid charges and the efficiency of the utility itself.

 

2 hours ago, Luke said:

The only number that matters is the wholesale power cost paid by the utility - that evens out grid charges and the efficiency of the utility itself.

 

For me the only number that matters is the amount on the bill I receive  and the amount of the check I have to write to the provider.  All the fees and taxes mean little to me because regardless of what they are I have to pay them.  As far as I'm concerned all the different costs that contribute to the final bill are my power costs.  

When I go to the grocery store and buy a dozen oranges I don't care about the transportation costs to the wholesaler or the delivery costs to the retailer or the markup the retailers adds.  What's important to me is how much comes out of my wallet.  If someone asks me how much the oranges cost I don't itemize the production costs or the wholesale costs or the delivery costs I tell them how much I paid the retailer.  Maybe I'm just not that smart.

Noel

Noel, we're not talking about our personal bills. We're talking about what power is cheaper to generate.

This is getting pointless.

1 hour ago, Luke said:

This is getting pointless.

You're right, Luke.  But then, you're always right aren't you?

If renewable power is truly cheaper to generate *and* transmit, then I assure you the power companies would be all in on the "green" revolution and would be building solar farms and wind turbines everywhere with no need for govt. subsidies.  Instead they are building a lot of natural gas and nuclear plants.  In China they're building coal and nuclear power plants.  Germany gets 46% of its electricity from renewables, but also a whopping 29% of its electricity from coal power plants and 10% from natural gas because they foolishly shut down almost all their nuclear plants.

The price of electricity by country:

Germany 39c/KWh - one of the highest in the world

Belgium 32c/KWh

UK 27c/KWh

Italy 27c/KWh

France 21c/KWh - most comes from nuclear power

USA 14c/KWh

Switching to renewable energy is simply not as easy or inexpensive as you'd like it to be.

Get real, man.

Dave

Edited January 25, 20224 yr by dave2013

 After living many years in NYC - Manhattan, I retired to Florida - I call it Flori-dah.  Yah, hot and humid about seven months of the year. 

But ask Texans how they feel 'bout their power grid after last winter where many had to huddle together to avoid almost literary  freezing to death.  Oh, actually Texas is off the national grid - they manage and provide their own power within Texas. How did  that work out.  Texas currently has two nuclear power plants:  (One reactor shut down just before the 2021 Winter cold wave and contributed to the catastrophe).  That plant opened in 1993 after years of planning, building, and start-up.  

I'll bet a lot of Texans would probably like to see a few more of those plants up and running.  BTW, many of the wind turbines froze- over in 2021 and ceased operating as well.

10 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I

While I agree that encouraging a reduction in population growth is vital to deal with resource scarcity, we're not going to see 30+ billion people.
In fact, population growth has seen a steady decline since the mid-1980s.

 

Fingers crossed that the relatively recent trend of global infant mortality decrease, improving female literacy, empowerment and contraception in the developing world, and declining birth rate in much of the developed world (a trend being replicated in larger, developing countries), means that the World's population could cap-out at 10.9 billion by 2100 (or even 9.7 billion by 2064), compared to the current estimate of 7.9 billion as of November 2021.

Annual change in absolute numbers chart shows that 2014 marked the high point in absolute growth.

In the meantime, we need to throw everything we have at low-carbon/no hydrocarbon power generation. That incudes adding a significant amount of nuclear to the energy mix.
Rising energy prices in Europe due to an overreliance on wind energy and the effects of pollution from dirty power generation is going to be a volatile combination before this decade is out.

Edited January 25, 20224 yr by charliearon
removed quote

14 hours ago, birdguy said:

I must have missed that Martin.  I got all the cons of nuclear power but I don't recall anybody actually saying what we could use instead of nuclear to make up the shortfall of solar, wind, hydro and geothermal until something new is invented.

 

Renewables aren't going to be ubiquitous instantly. We have nuclear power now, we have fossil fuel power now, we have renewables now. Fossil fuels and nuclear power will be phased out over time in favour of renewables. As I said in the previous thread about this, I have no issue with existing nuclear plants remaining for now, as long as they are as safe as nuclear can be and operating efficiently. What I'm not in favour of is new nuclear, the expansion of nuclear power which is diametrically opposed to what we should be doing. Regarding nuclear power expansion as a mitigation method for climate change as some are doing, mainly as a result of nuclear industry propaganda, is not the answer. Phasing out nuclear as soon as possible is the way forward. This is not a case of abandon all nuclear power and fossil fuels over night, that is an impossibility and clearly not going to happen. 

As renewable energy continues to expand the shortfall diminishes and fossil fuel emitting technologies like fossil fuels and nuclear are phased out. Ultimately (as quick as feasible) we end up with multiple renewable sources and technologies like the "Smart Grid" and "International Smart Grid". 

I mean Ive just seen an article while browsing entitled "Nuclear best climate change solution". I kid you not, this is the sort of propaganda that's being perpetrated. The myth that nuclear emits no CO2 and therefore the answer to climate change.   

 

 

Quote

 

Nuclear industry’s propaganda war rages on

With renewable energy expanding fast, the nuclear industry’s propaganda war still claims it helps to combat climate change.

https://www.eco-business.com/news/nuclear-industrys-propaganda-war-rages-on/

 

 

 

 

12 hours ago, dave2013 said:

There are infrastructure and maintenance cost for my electricity producer as well.

 

Oh Dave, This is exasperating. You are comparing two different countries. All nations have different costs involved in terms of the production of power. Pretty sure France don't SELL electricity to Jersey and Guernsey without making a profit. They aren't doing it for altruistic reasons. We as customers pay that premium. However, its a better option for us than firing up out old inefficient power station and importing gas to run it. 

Ive given you one link that demonstrates that renewables are cheaper on average world wide. How many more would you like?

Do you see why debating this with you is pointless? 

 

Quote

 

Renewables are now significantly undercutting fossil fuels as the world’s cheapest source of energy, according to a new report.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/renewables-cheapest-energy-source/#:~:text=Financing the transition to renewable,major countries%2C the outlook found.

 

 

And please don't mention subsidies when the fossil fuel industry receives $11 million dollars every minute. And nuclear power in your own country cant survive without a handout.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nuclear-power-wont-survive-without-a-government-handout/

 

Quote

 

Nuclear power is so expensive it requires federal subsides to compete in the energy market.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/10-reasons-not-to-invest-in-nuclear-energy/

 

 

Edited January 25, 20224 yr by martin-w

Martin, for every link you provide telling us renewables can supply 100% of our energy needs I can find one that says just the opposite.

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-100-percent-renewable-energy-myth/

Noel

My province, Manitoba, has 98+% from hydro. Most of the balance is from things like windmills and a very small percentage from a fossil fuel. This was done over many decades long before the tree huggers and government decided to get up on the "Green" pedestal. There is more hydro power coming on line in the near future. We already export green electricity to the US and provinces. This is in a physically large province with a total population of 1.3 million people. basic residential rate is under 10 cents/kWh (Cdn$). The province is carrying a large debt load (for 1.3 million people) for this development but  in the long term it is paying off. We have been lucky to have had decades of smart leadership to pull this off. While we will never be totally happy with our governments the provincial government over the decades deserve a big pat on the back here.

Edited January 25, 20224 yr by dbw1
edit for spelling - again

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

Oh Dave, This is exasperating.

I've given up. Dave is attempting to infer production costs based on retail prices in different parts of the world that involve other costs and totally different mixes of electricity. It's about as useful an argument is saying that a bag of fruit in Anchorage costs more than a bag of fruit in Miami, so oranges are cheaper to grow than bananas! Even in elementary school, we were taught to eliminate variables and compare like for like. Dave throws in the kitchen sink to try and "prove" what he believed all along.

In a previous thread (where we said the same things) I provided I link from IEA that had a graph with wholesale power generation cost bands. It's probably the best data I've seen to base a discussion around and I hoped that people would look at it and refer to it. (It's pretty favorable to steady-state nuclear, btw). Instead we get the same tired arguments over and over again and no desire to actually look at good data.

Is this a lack of intellectual capability to understand the difference between retail and producer prices in a supply chain, or merely trolling? To me it is a distinction without a difference. The result is the same. Being an actual free-marketer, I see which direction the market is moving in.

I'm predicting a Chernobyl/3-mile Island cats-ass-trophy coming to this topic!  

17 minutes ago, Luke said:

Is this a lack of intellectual capability to understand the difference between retail and producer prices in a supply chain, or merely trolling?

And there it is. 

If you don't agree with Luke, you either lack "intellectual capability", a nice way of saying you're not intelligent, or you're "trolling".

This is a common tactic used by ideologues who become frustrated that they can't persuade everyone else to believe like they do.

There's no point in discussing this any further.  You have your ideas and opinions, and I have mine.

Dave