7 hours ago, dave2013 said:

https://energyskeptic.com/2024/wind/  -there's

Haha … you’re joking right?  “Energy Skeptic”, they don’t even try to hide their bias.

6 hours ago, qqwertz said:

Ahem, sources

https://www.enelgreenpower.com/learning-hub/renewable-energies/wind-energy/advantages-wind-energy

https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/wind-energy-factsheet

https://www.statkraft.com/newsroom/explained/mythbusting-wind-power-is-unreliable-inefficient-and-harmful-to-nature/

https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/wind-energy

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X21000948

Plenty more “qualified” sources … these are just a few … hint none of them begin with “energy skeptic” 😉

EDIT: they’re based on actual real science with equations and the methodology of measurement.

Edited September 7, 2025Sep 7 by SayAgain

16 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Then stop posting misinformation.

Dave

 

Using AI to scour the internet for the information and provide the concensus that, globally, solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy is not misinformation. Its only misinformation to you because its contrary to your bias.

In addition, it was you, in your very first reply, that took the opportunity to take a dig at wind power, like your favourite politician does. You then went on to make demonstrably false claims about wind power being more expensive. This resulted in a topic about mining the Moon becoming a 3 page topic involving you deriding wind power.

I take some responsibility myself for correcting you rather than ignoring you... but yes, I can see the point others are making, that the catalyst for locked threads is yourself. 

Now I'll make it worse by posting the following, but of course, your reply will be to simply trash the sources. But when others trash your sources, that's, somehow, not allowed.

Its not open for debate, its a fact that solar is the cheapest on average, globally, followed by wind.

 

Fossil fuels dominate the global power supply because, until very recently, electricity from fossil fuels was far cheaper than electricity from renewables. This has dramatically changed within the last decade. In most places in the world, power from new renewables is now cheaper than power from new fossil fuels.

https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth

 

https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/07/22/more-than-90-of-new-renewable-energy-projects-are-now-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-study-show

 

https://www.iea.org/news/massive-global-growth-of-renewables-to-2030-is-set-to-match-entire-power-capacity-of-major-economies-today-moving-world-closer-to-tripling-goal

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41971-7

 

https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/global-cost-of-renewables-to-continue-falling-in-2025-as-china-extends-manufacturing-lead-bloombergnef/

 

https://earth.org/solar-and-wind-cheapest-sources-of-power-in-most-of-world/

https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/renewable-energy-milestone-solar-energy-is-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels/

https://www.snexplores.org/article/green-energy-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-climate

https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/News/2023/July/GenCost

Of course, Dave will now arrive and tell us that every source is lying as part of a devious worldwide conspiracy.... because it doesn't align with what he wants to believe, his pychological bias.

Edited September 7, 2025Sep 7 by martin-w

6 hours ago, c912039 said:

One of my Uncles is a nuclear physicist (retired) who has firmly believed in fission as the only power source that the planet should use. I have talked to him about the marvels of engineering that has gone into the design, construction and operation of a fission reactor. However, when it comes to discussing the toxicity, longevity and security risk of the toxic waste, and ongoing cost for future generations to manage and keep the waste safe and secure, he dismisses those concerns as trivial or something for future generations to worry about and solve.

I am also a physicist and I am firmly on your side with this. Fission is really kicking the can down the road and could create immense problems on time scales much longer than the entire history of civilization. I don't think we have the capacity to fully estimate the risks. Plus, nuclear power is often quite expensive ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source ).

4 hours ago, tdflightsim said:

 Looking on the positive side, maybe 250 yrs in the future, clean cold fusion is abundant,  efficient and free. 

And Fleischmann and Pons get the first posthumous Nobel Prize😁 (I know you're not really claiming that it will be happening, but cold fusion triggers a lot of memories for me 🙂 )

2 hours ago, SayAgain said:

Plenty more “qualified” sources … these are just a few

I appreciate the links, but I really was just pulling your legs because you pressed Dave for sources. I knew your numbers are correct, I have done a bit of research on solar panels myself.

When it comes to sources, we have to be careful not to dismiss anything too quickly. In the end, what counts is the better argument and better researched facts. Yes, that is more likely to come from an MIT web page than from somewhere else, but that doesn't necessarily mean other sources are wrong. There are plenty of examples were brilliant scientists supported, let's say, fringe ideas. This includes Roger Penrose's work on the brain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose), Brian Josephson's work on parapsychology ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson ), and William Shockley's views on eugenics ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley ), for instance.

Let's just keep an open mind and try to talk to each other as people who at least share a common passion for flight simming 🙂

 

14 hours ago, dave2013 said:

No, I'm not trying to get the thread locked.  I enjoy debates, but the moderators don't like them.

 

Not true! The moderators have no issue with multi-page debates as long as we dont insult each other and it stays on topic. 

14 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Fusion power is the future, true clean energy source, and I would suggest we pour money into research and development for that as opposed to wasting it on wind and solar.

I must leave this argument here as we aren't allowed to have prolonged debates

 

Huh.... money is already being poured into fusion to the tune of billions. It currently generates zero net energy. Wind and solar ARE producing energy and expanding rapidly, and as demonstrated by 5 million sources linked to here, at low cost relative to other sources.

Of course we are allowed to have prolonged debates, as you well know, just not off-topic as this one has been steered..... again!

8 minutes ago, qqwertz said:

And Fleischmann and Pons get the first posthumous Nobel Prize😁 (I know you're not really claiming that it will be happening, but cold fusion triggers a lot of memories for me 🙂 )

 

I recall it was Arthur C Clarke who said they might be the first to recieve the Ig Nobel Prize and the Nobel Prize.

I recall they changed the name to Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, or something like that. And yes, research still continues. 

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

 

I recall it was Arthur C Clarke who said they might be the first to recieve the Ig Nobel Prize and the Nobel Prize.

I recall they changed the name to Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, or something like that. And yes, research still continues. 

Too late for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Geim

And yes, research on low-energy fusion continues, but on a low level.

This *will* be my last post in this thread.

I find it amusing that any sources I link to are instantly deemed "unreliable", "junk science", or "biased", yet those referenced by supporters of a certain Agenda are naturally unbiased and 100% trustworthy.  Does anyone really believe that universities, scientists, govt. officials, or green industry advocates and the industry itself are not biased?  Please.

I'll leave you with this:

%energy from wind & solar___electricity cost kw/hr

 Denmark  69%  37c

Portugal  46%  23c

Netherlands 45%  28c

Germany  43%  38c

Spain 43%  24c

Greece  43%  24c

UK  36%  39c

Belgium 31%  38c

There are other factors in the electricity price such as taxes and fees which may be contribute to the higher cost, but there is a correlation between countries with the most power generation from wind and solar and the higher cost of electricity, and I doubt the taxes account for all of it.  Moreover, most solar and wind power needs govt. subsidies, a cost which is conveniently omitted.  I'll repeat that oil and gas subsidies are far lower than those for wind and solar.  I previously posted data verifying this.

Additional links regarding the true cost of wind and solar power: 

https://www.powermag.com/solar-and-winds-hidden-price-tag-why-cost-isnt-the-whole-story/

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/solar-and-wind-power-are-expensive

https://www.climatedepot.com/2025/07/25/if-alternative-energy-is-so-cheap-why-does-it-still-need-government-support/

All the advocates fail to mention, either due to ignorance or deliberate omission, that wind and solar are *intermittent* sources of power and thus require lots and lots of battery backup.  Moreover, unless one likes frequent power outages, they must be backstopped by reliable baseload power from nuclear, coal, or natural gas plants.

I keep repeating myself and expect that some folks will listen and perhaps *moderate* their views on solar and wind power - not change their views, but moderate them.  Alas, some folks believe what they want to believe and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.

I support solar and wind power *where it makes sense*.  In the USA we build big solar plants in the Southwest where it's sunny 300 days a year.  We build wind farms in very windy areas, most of which are sparsely populated, and offshore where wind is plentiful.  In these cases it makes sense, but these sources still require either massive battery plants to store energy and provide it when the sun goes down and the wind doesn't blow, which are very expensive and require replacement every 15 years, and/or direct backup from baseload sources.  However, advocates of wind and solar power want to build big plants and wind turbines *everywhere*, which is unreasonable IMO.   

Advocates have also not addressed the tremendous amount of new mining that will be required for all the materials to build all the wind and solar to replace traditional power.

Wind and solar have a place, but a small place IMO.  Solar and wind are not a panacea for all our power needs.  Period.

Dave

Personally, I don't have the faith required to be a true believer in the relative benefits of wind and solar power. 

https://energynow.com/2023/07/the-ultimate-debunking-of-solar-and-wind-are-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-alex-epstein/

Reawable energy companies have a legal responsibility to their shareholders, they have no legal responsibility to supply cheap electricity.

Homer Simpson at play during his shift at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. 

12 hours ago, dave2013 said:

This *will* be my last post in this thread.

I find it amusing that any sources I link to are instantly deemed "unreliable", "junk science", or "biased", yet those referenced by supporters of a certain Agenda are naturally unbiased and 100% trustworthy.

Somehow I doubt this will be your last post, and I really don’t care if it is or isn’t so long as you don’t keep trying to get threads locked with “the last word”.

Your links aren’t qualified or accredited simply because they aren’t transparent, don’t reveal sources of data, and don’t provide any sort of methodology one can review or have been reviewed by those in the field.   

MIT is bias?  Ask yourself, why are you looking for “justification” instead of looking at the data or trying to understand how the data was arrived at or what the calculations involved represent?

You basically list of everyone or anyone as “I don’t trust” … that’s basically not debatable?  Your “trust” is just that yours.  You follow a pattern of “I don’t understand it”, so therefore I don’t trust it.   Yet, you’ll trust sources like “energy skeptic” with zero accreditation?  It’s obvious what you’re doing, let me Google search until I can find someone or anyone that supports my bias and/or skepticism.  

There is no real debate with you, you just want to believe whatever you want to believe.  Science doesn’t care what you believe.  Science is a methodology, not “trust”, not “fear”, not “skepticism” … all completely irrelevant to the methodology of discovery.

17 hours ago, dave2013 said:

find it amusing that any sources I link to are instantly deemed "unreliable",

 

🤣 As I said, precisely what you do.

 

17 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Moreover, most solar and wind power needs govt. subsidies, a cost which is conveniently omitted.  

 

Huh.... its groundhog day again. As has been pointed out to you six million times, the fossil fuel industry recieves subsidies to the tune of $7 trillion! In addition, Solar and wind are now frequently cheaper without subsidies.

 

 

"Yes, wind and solar power are often cost-competitive or even the cheapest form of new energy generation without subsidies, primarily due to dramatically decreased technology costs."

 

17 hours ago, dave2013 said:

All the advocates fail to mention, either due to ignorance or deliberate omission, that wind and solar are *intermittent* sources of power and thus require lots and lots of battery backup. 

 

Literally nobody omits the fact that wind and solar are intermittent. And battery backup is required. And litteraly nobody is saying we are currently at the level where solar and wind can provide all needs. What on earth are you talking about. Its a frequently debated topic.

 

17 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Alas, some folks believe what they want to believe and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.

 

Once again you are talking about yourself, Dave. You keep recycling the same myths over and over again and slipping in the little digs whenever possible. In all the time I've known you you have not budged one iota and still promote the same easily debunked myths. 

 

17 hours ago, dave2013 said:

However, advocates of wind and solar power want to build big plants and wind turbines *everywhere*,

 

No they dont. 

 

17 hours ago, dave2013 said:

This *will* be my last post in this thread.

 

This thread, maybe, but you'll be back next week, next month, repeatedly slipping in the same comments, sparking a debate, leading to locked topics.

Edited September 8, 2025Sep 8 by martin-w

In the UK the oil and gas industry pay 30% corporation tax, plus a supplementary 10% plus a windfall tax bringing upto 75% total tax. To be increased to 78% in November. This may be increased again in the next budget.

This revenue will disappear some time in future.

This does not include the fuel duty and tax paid by the consumer.