RichardR’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  We need some honest cost comparisons

  I wrote that in regard to a particular example, not about solar costs in general.  In terms of the source I cited, as far as I know they are talking about costs before subsidies.

  Yeah maybe, but not of actual plants operating now.  Nevada Solar One is one of the biggest plants I've heard about so far and so should be the most efficient, and yet its costs are way over the costs Romm quotes for nuclear that he implies are too expensive to consider.  And it's typical - other costs I've read about for solar, compared with the relatively puny outputs, are if anything worse.

  But before subsidies is not a valid comparison to nuclear in any case. The number of commercial nuclear electricity generation plants built without some sort of liability limitation not given to other power sources is - zero.

  Well I would assume Romm used cost before subsidies, but I don't really know.  But meaningful comparisons should be before subsidies or, well, they're not meaningful.  I think we need a more honest evaluation of the options, and I don't feel that Romm's various anti-nuclear articles are that.

  Look, I'm not against solar, and I'm not saying nuclear alone is the answer, but the costs so far of solar, and the relatively low outputs it provides, seem to me to be more of a problem than the cost of nuclear.  As someone wrote above, we haven't really tried more efficient ways to build nuclear plants.  And although the cost of solar is sure to drop as the technology improves, it seems to me the low output and thus the power / unit cost is always going to be a problem.
  On Nuclear power is expensive posted 1 year, 5 months ago 39 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Er, who's being dishonest?

  By including this, rather than going directly to per kWh calculations you expose yourself as a dishonest arguer.

  Joseph Romm was quoting cost per kW.  I was comparing solar cost per kW with Mr Romm's cost per kW.  This would seem to me to be completely honest.  In fact, your claiming this is dishonest, would seem to be dishonest.

  Skeptico took the kWh per year, treated them as baseload, and calculated capacity based on treating a peaking plant as a baseload plant. I pointed this out.

  You didn't refute the argument.  Skeptico took your own quoted annual power figure of 134 gW to arrive at a 15mW plant.  Clearly this is less than the 64mW nominal capacity quoted by Solar One, but that would be because it doesn't produce anything at night, produces less at dawn and dusk, and in the winter, so the lower figure is the correct comparison to use if we are comparing it with nuclear.

  An honest arguer would either not have used Skeptico's calculation or explained why treating a peaking plant as baseload was the right way to do the calculation.

  Explained above.
  

  I looked at this particular plant because it happens to be the most recent plant. But it is only 64 MW - tiny and not able to grab the full economies of scale needed for CSP. There are some 25 KW CSP systems out there with even worse numbers.

  Well, I was going with the most recent plant too.  What else should I do?

  But CSP of 300 MW or greater is normally considered to pen out to a levelized cost (with interest) of 9-12 cents per kWh
  http://www.energylan.sandia.gov/sunlab/overview.htm
  Scroll down to or search for the "What does it cost" section near the bottom.

  Maybe I misunderstood your link, but I don't see it detail any actual power station built that achieves the numbers you mention.  This seems to be an overview of what they think is possible.  And they quote solar technologies as costing 9-12c pr kW/Hr, as you did, except you wrote that this was only achievable with subsidies.  So is it only achievable with subsidies or not?  Not that I object to subsidies - but comparisons should be made before subsidies if they are to be meaningful.
  On Nuclear power is expensive posted 1 year, 5 months ago 39 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Solar is more expensive

  Mr. Romm:

  Your estimates for nuclear capital costs range from $4,000 to $8,100 per kW, with costs per kWHr between 8.9c to 17c.  This you call "so expensive the company raises your rates before the power even gets to the meter!"

  And yet in a post on this blog less than three weeks ago, Solar land use: less than coal, Gar Lipow wrote about Nevada Solar One that by the calculations of commenter Skeptico, cost over $17,000 per kW.  And  commenter Sean Casten calculated the cost per kWHr at somewhere between 16c and 31c  Lipow admitted in a reply that the only way he could get to his claimed cost of 10-12c per kWHr was with "subsidies".

  What that in mind, how do the costs you quote above show that nuclear is priced out of the market compared with, say, solar?On Nuclear power is expensive posted 1 year, 5 months ago 39 Responses