Palaces’s Recent Comments

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  Get real about numbers comparisons

  I can't believe the astonishing amount of toxic brainwashing you have absorbed or the lengthy process required to deprogram you.

  Here's a link, the most current published on the IEA website whose supposed to be tracking things like this. It covered 130 various power plants on several continents of every major type of power production. The data was gathered in 2003 but the report was finished and published in 2005 making it look more current than it is.

  Page 153 (155 PDF) http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2005/ElecCost.pdf  
  Technology  nth of a kind capital cost capital cost(2003 $kW)  
  Advanced nuclear $1,167 2003 prices are now 4 years outdated.  
  Geothermal $1,475  
  Landfill gas $1,426  
  Photovoltaic $1,173  
  Solar thermal na  
  Biomass $1,308  
  Wind $887  
  Pulverised coal $1,127  
  IGCC Coal $980  
  Nat. gas combined cycle $538  
  Combustion turbine $380

  ABOVE is extracted from the USA prices.

  Virtually all of the prices are not only wrong, they are very wrong in 2007. The prices given are for plant only, omitting fuel costs, O&M, wastes disposal, and decommissioning.

  You would have to study the report in much greater depth and have access to a lot of other background materials to even understand what you are seeing.

  IGCC exists only in two smaller plants and is not proven at commercial volumes yet.

  Capacity factors matter. The prices given are based on peak production, which is only true 28% of the time for PV, about 38% of the time for optimally sited onshore wind, 85% of the time for pulverized coal. Further manipulations of these numbers is required to equalize the cost factors fairly.

  It is premature to do decision-making, when actual reliable numbers are so difficult to compare.

  Instead of making choices on half-assed numbers, you, me, others interested in this subject, need to devote 100 pairs of eyes to data-mining the world knowledgebase and collecting the best numbers on one collaborative spreadsheet so everything is lined up side by side by side.

  Here's an example from last month, one of two plants was approved at current 2007 price estimates close to $2/watt.
  http://www.newsobserver.com/666/story/511525.html
  1,600 MW max capacity price tag has soared to $3 billion ... Just two months ago, Duke Energy had reported to state utility regulators that the twin coal plants plants would cost $2 billion... Duke Energy's $2 billion estimate was based on year-and-a-half old industry projections

  Coal and Nuke plant construction is competition for each other and a small pool of skilled builders.

  http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/1999/Nov/1999111 ...
   Duke Power's coal-fired plants generated more than 42 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 1998, 51 percent of the company's total electricity output, with an impressive average heat-rate of 9,382 Btu/kWh.
  http://www.cleanenergy.org/programs/hottopic.cfm?ID=71
   1600-megawatt pulverized coal  two new units (800 MW each)
  http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type= ...
   Old price estimates of $1,000 per kilowatt for coal plants and $500 for natural-gas plants "have probably doubled," Crane said.

  Wind is stranded in many places. Regardless of the power cost at the windfield, it now cost well over a megabuck per mile to carry it to point of use on new transmission lines that meltdown in icestorms. There have been over 1,000,000 customer blackout days since New Year's Day 2007 in the USA from ever more severe climate change.

  Here's prices given in February, 2007 to the Texas Power Commission about not particularly stranded Northern TX windfields:

  http://groups.google.com/group/alt.energy/msg/324bfba4c6e ...
  Key points:
  

  • $1.5 billion transmission system
    
  • $10 billion power plants
    
  • 3 years
    
  • 800 miles
    
  • TX currently 2,849 megawatts of capacity.
    
  • 1,800 MW Airtricity proposal
    
  • Other partners would add another 2,400 megawatts of wind power,
    
  2,000 megawatts of gas-fired electric power and 1,800 megawatts of
  coal-fired power.
  * TXU proposed $10 billion to build 11 coal-fired 8,600 MW power
  plants.

  http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/0 ...
  Texas companies plan wind, gas, coal power plants

  http://groups.google.com/group/alt.energy/msg/b1e49f2200f ...
  Derived facts (from sources cited at below)
  $1.5B transmission lines / 800 miles length = $1.875 million per mile
  connecting remote windfields by wire.
  4,200 MW / 1M homes = 4,200 Watts/home ???
  $10B project - $1.5 transmission lines = $8.5B power
  1.8 MW + 2.4 MW = 4.2 MW wind
  2.0 MW CH4 + 1.8 MW coal = 3.8 MW carbon
  $8.5B   8 MW  = $10625 MW
  (Carbon plant construction costs do not include recurring carbon fuel
  costs)

  http://groups.google.com/group/alt.energy/msg/4af0edb3602 ...
  Key points:
  

  • 800 miles transmission lines
    
  • 1,000,000 homes powered
    
  • 4,200 MW wind capable
    
  • 1,800 MW wind from Airtricity
    
  http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.as ...

  So you see, there is nothing straightforward about computing comparative costs of different power generation scales or methods.

  If you don't want to do any work, that's your business, but you shouldn't be palming off bogus numbers that you haven't personally checked out.

  But in fact, you lack specific numbers entirely, and rely on hearsay from RMI to crunch numbers for you without any regard for their accuracy. RMI should participate in the 100 pairs of eyes project, but not sequester it under their brandname. They have a dog in the fight and are not an objective source of information -- they make their living dependent on selling specific concepts for a couple million dollar per year.

  We need source references for numbers and published ones taken from regulators is about as good as we can ever get, although sometimes fudged and padded for all that.

  The Cost of PV went UP instead of down, because Germany makes utilities buy power at 55 US cents per kWh. Most of US PV was exported to Germany to cover their gold rush to cash in at $7 watt for panels in cardboard shipping boxes not installed.

  All of the numbers are moving targets and none can be trusted more than two years old, but PV especially is at the mercy of world supply-strangling cartel price-fixing. The long-term trend of PV from 1979 to 2000 says that the "natural" price of PV should be under $3/watt for panels now.

  $6/watt installed panels were in the news this week:

  http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=47 ...
  San Diego Unveils 1.135-MW Solar System, on 4.33 acres of rooftops, $6.5 million in capital installation. The solar power system has the capacity to produce 1.602 million
  kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year.

  $5.73 net installed cost per watt.
  ~ 50% space utilization.
  3.87 hours/day average peak production.
  16% capacity factor peak production.

  Anybody finds fault with these numbers, please post corrections, thank you.

  http:ecosyn.us PALACES for the People, H2-PV, PV-Breeders acres of PV, tons of Hydrogen

  On CSM investigates posted 2 years, 8 months ago 42 Responses

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  Global Warming Has Been Cancelled by H2-PV

  Global Warming Has Been Cancelled by H2-PV

  A 25% growth of PV per year, as happened from 1979 through 2000, until Bush crowd took over, projected into the future shows three FREEDOM DAYS.

  A 19% price decrease every time the installed PV base doubles, as happed from 1979 through 2000, until the Bush crowd took over, shows the price of each FREEDOM DAY. Doubling occurs every 3 years at 25% compounded annual growth.

  Spreadsheets are online to provide the details of the increases and decreases from any arbitrary price point chosen by changing the master price cell.

  http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.html
  http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.sxc
  http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.xls

  FREEDOM DAY #1 is the date that the PV watts installed equals the whole country consumption of electricity. Other sources are still needed for off-hours power.

  FREEDOM DAY #2 is the date that the PV doubles and the extra PV goes to storing energy at 50% round trip efficiency or better, like power is now stored in pumped reservoirs at 50% efficiency electricity to electricity round trip.

  FREEDOM DAY #3 is the date when PV surplus is sufficient to power all electricity and make hydrogen sufficient to fuel all 200,000,000 cars and light trucks in America.

  THE COST OF NOTHING is also computed. This is the costs of paying for electricity at the meter forever and ever, changing NOTHING, doing NOTHING.

  http://hydrogentruth.info/page_4a2.html
  Freedom Day

  http://hydrogentruth.info/page_4a3.html
  The Cost of Nothing

  DO THE MATH
  $10,667,790,000,000     Utility Bills
  -$10,031,886,000,000     H2-PV
  ========
  $635,904,000,000     H2-PV Savings

  That's $635,904,000,000
  (BILLION with a B)

  Do it YOUR WAY, Nothing, and spend $10.668 TRILLION, just get electricity and more bills every month forever.

  Do it the H2-PV RIGHT WAY and get all your electricity and all your car fill-ups, plus save $635 BILLION for other things. Only pay $200 per person once every 20 years thereafter for replacement PV.

  http://hydrogentruth.info/Villains/Debunking_Robert_Zubri ...

  Store 10,000,000,000 kilograms of Hydrogen in a nationwide pipeline grid by just increasing the pressure one atmosphere (14.5 psi).

  http://hydrogentruth.info/page_07a.html
  Hydrogen Pipelines

  More spreadsheets:
  http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/

  http:ecosyn.us PALACES for the People, H2-PV, PV-Breeders acres of PV, tons of Hydrogen

  On It's seductive -- and wrong posted 2 years, 9 months ago 54 Responses

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  $64/watt Solar PV is nothing to brag about!!!!

  http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=47 ...

  What the Hell is going on here?

  130 x 300 = 39,000 square feet.
  Times 12 watts/sq.ft. @ 13% net efficiency Polycrystal PV = 468,000 watts.

  $30,000,000 / 468,000 watts = $64 per watt. This is ten times the cost of residential PV and you would expect there to be some kind of volume discount on half a Megawatt purchased at one lump sum.

  Doesn't anybody know how to use a calculator any more?

  http://hydrogentruth.info/page_4a3.html

  The Cost o ...
  

• in OpenOffice.org, StarOffice calc http://HydrogenTRUTH.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.sxc

http:ecosyn.us PALACES for the People, H2-PV, PV-Breeders acres of PV, tons of Hydrogen