Reality check on electric cars

Solar and wind have more than enough energy to power our society.
Piddle power won't power our society.
Whether we have the current technology and will to do so is something else entirely.
Piddle power won't power our society.
The sun provides enough power in one hour to power the world's current yearly total energy usage from all sources.
Lie. A single coal plant can provide as much power as an entire State full of wind turbines.
Converting that power to something we can use is the only question.
Solar power is the most expensive method of producing electric power, watt for watt. Wind comes in 2nd. Nuclear power comes in a very distant 3rd.
As I have already pointed out more than once with math,
You are not using math.
the cost of solar with batteries is low enough that it can currently compete with other sources.
Solar power is not batteries. Batteries are not an energy source. They must be charged. Even single use batteries such as a common dry cell.
Technology keeps moving forward and as battery technology changes and gets cheaper we will probably achieve that.
Batteries are not technology. Batteries are electrochemistry. Chemistry you ignore. Lithium,. BTW, is a limited resource, and is not renewable. It will get MORE expensive the more that these batteries are required.
Not next year and probably not in 10 years but within 50 years it will be the most likely result of our current advances.
Void argument fallacy.
Natural gas and nuclear will only get more expensive over time.
Why?
Solar and wind will keep getting cheaper.
No, they aren't.
They have no fuel costs over their lifespan once installed.
Solar panels only last a few years. They suffer damage from weather, sunlight, insects, birds, and of course, accident. They only work during daylight hours.
Wind generators require several special trucks just to carry the parts, and a helicopter to assemble it. These blades are fiberglass. They only work when the wind is just the right range of speed. Too fast or too slow they don't produce power. Worse, the large moving blades cannot be used at all in icing conditions, since such unbalancing of the blades would create a catastrophic failure. If a governor fails, these machine catastrophically fail, throwing debris up to a mile away.
Customers in Colorado and Minnesota will be paying an extra $300-$400 for the one week freeze in Texas a a couple of years ago.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...sotans-to-pay-for-texas-deep-freeze-problems/
Colorado is not Texas. Minnesota is not Texas.
I guess you should call the energy companies liars.
Some are, especially solar energy suppliers and wind turbine suppliers.
https://tx.my.xcelenergy.com/s/abou...lectricity-bills-MCM2VLFWLHNZFV7GJSX3JQRSIOJQ
https://www.westword.com/news/xcel-puc-energy-bills-rising-15180035
Random Holy Links mean nothing.
Maybe you should come and join the rest of us in the 21st century where renewable energy is getting cheaper than gas.
Natural gas IS renewable energy.
 
To recap. You didn't provide any science or engineering. You simply regurgitated vacuous talking points that aren't supported by the real world experience.

Then let me put some math, science, and real-world data to this that crushes your unscientific, non-mathematic, and based on radical Greentard Leftist bullshit into the fucking ground.

Solar Star I and II are currently the largest PV solar arrays in the US. Their pertinent data is:

579 MW nameplate. That is what they are rated to produce.
32.8% capacity factor. That's their average output of nameplate per day
1663 GW per year production based on actual output per year
3,200 acre footprint
$2.5 billion to build in 2016 dollars

Palo Verde Nuclear Arizona

4000 MW nameplate
94% capacity factor
32,300 GW per year
4,000 acre footprint
$11.5 billion in 2016 dollars to build

Let's do some math...

It would take about twenty (20) Solar Star plants sitting on 64,000 acres (100 square miles) at a cost of about $50 billion (2016 dollars) to match the output of Palo Verde Nuclear.
The solar array only works when the sun is shining so we either have to build alternate capacity or sufficient storage to hold enough power for when it is off-line to cover those periods.
Building natural gas plants to do this costs about $812 per KW right now or 4x 10^6 x 812 ~ $3.3 billion + $101 per MW in fuel per hour. But those plants will sit unused half or more of the time.
Or we could build batteries. That's $225 per KWH. To store 20 hours of our array's output, about 75,000 MW would cost us a mere $1.7 trillion dollars.

That's the fucking real world right now. Solar is stupid beyond belief. It is grotesquely expensive.

I shoved all this down Lauren Kuby's throat at ASU (she's part of the staff at their college of sustainability and Global Futures), so you ain't got nothin' on me. When it comes to energy policy, you're goddamned retard! She couldn't refute any of it, and didn't even try. You are a mental midget compared to her and she's supposed to an expert.

https://search.asu.edu/profile/61496
 
Then let me put some math, science, and real-world data to this that crushes your unscientific, non-mathematic, and based on radical Greentard Leftist bullshit into the fucking ground.

Solar Star I and II are currently the largest PV solar arrays in the US. Their pertinent data is:

579 MW nameplate. That is what they are rated to produce.
32.8% capacity factor. That's their average output of nameplate per day
1663 GW per year production based on actual output per year
3,200 acre footprint
$2.5 billion to build in 2016 dollars

Palo Verde Nuclear Arizona

4000 MW nameplate
94% capacity factor
32,300 GW per year
4,000 acre footprint
$11.5 billion in 2016 dollars to build

Let's do some math...

It would take about twenty (20) Solar Star plants sitting on 64,000 acres (100 square miles) at a cost of about $50 billion (2016 dollars) to match the output of Palo Verde Nuclear.
The solar array only works when the sun is shining so we either have to build alternate capacity or sufficient storage to hold enough power for when it is off-line to cover those periods.
Building natural gas plants to do this costs about $812 per KW right now or 4x 10^6 x 812 ~ $3.3 billion + $101 per MW in fuel per hour. But those plants will sit unused half or more of the time.
Or we could build batteries. That's $225 per KWH. To store 20 hours of our array's output, about 75,000 MW would cost us a mere $1.7 trillion dollars.

That's the fucking real world right now. Solar is stupid beyond belief. It is grotesquely expensive.
I’m not sure where you got your $101 per MW fuel cost but let’s use it.

Running the plant for the current per year 32,300 Gwh
32,300,000MWH per year x $101 ~ $3.3 billion per year in fuel costs
20 years would be over $60 billion in fuel costs

Let's run the plant only 50% of the time...
Total fuel cost over 20 years - $30 billion

Cost of solar panels to produce 4000GW - solar installations are currently $820 per kwh produced (Not per rated panel)
1 x 10^6 x 4000 x 820 ~ $3.3 billion
So using your numbers if we ran our gas plant 50% of the time we would save about $26 billion. Who wouldn’t want to save that kind of money?

Let's correct a little -

3.6MMBTU is needed to produce 1MWH
https://www.convert-measurement-units.com/conversion-calculator.php?type=energie
Price of MMBTU of nat gas in October was $5.66
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm

The cost in October for fuel was $20.36. We'll call it $20.
32,300,000MWH per year x $20 ~ $600 million per year in fuel costs
Over 20 years - $12 billion in fuel costs

Cut that in half - $6 billion in fuel costs

We still save $2.7 billion over 20 years by installing solar with our gas plant.

Natural gas would have to be under $1.50 for 20 years before the solar wouldn't be a great choice with a gas plant as back up. I'm ignoring the fact that solar production may not match the actual hourly needs but hey, using your numbers you could install 3 times the solar and still save money.
 
I’m not sure where you got your $101 per MW fuel cost but let’s use it.

Running the plant for the current per year 32,300 Gwh
32,300,000MWH per year x $101 ~ $3.3 billion per year in fuel costs
20 years would be over $60 billion in fuel costs

Let's run the plant only 50% of the time...
Total fuel cost over 20 years - $30 billion

Cost of solar panels to produce 4000GW - solar installations are currently $820 per kwh produced (Not per rated panel)
1 x 10^6 x 4000 x 820 ~ $3.3 billion
So using your numbers if we ran our gas plant 50% of the time we would save about $26 billion. Who wouldn’t want to save that kind of money?

Let's correct a little -

3.6MMBTU is needed to produce 1MWH
https://www.convert-measurement-units.com/conversion-calculator.php?type=energie
Price of MMBTU of nat gas in October was $5.66
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm

The cost in October for fuel was $20.36. We'll call it $20.
32,300,000MWH per year x $20 ~ $600 million per year in fuel costs
Over 20 years - $12 billion in fuel costs

Cut that in half - $6 billion in fuel costs

We still save $2.7 billion over 20 years by installing solar with our gas plant.

Natural gas would have to be under $1.50 for 20 years before the solar wouldn't be a great choice with a gas plant as back up. I'm ignoring the fact that solar production may not match the actual hourly needs but hey, using your numbers you could install 3 times the solar and still save money.

Special pleading fallacies. Math error. You are failing to account for the cost of solar installation and maintenance, or the power actually produced, or the cost of maintaining existing natural gas plants, or the cost per watt of all available systems.

T.A. Gardner has it more correct.

In the end, it's academic. People will choose what type of energy they want to buy. Power distribution companies will tend to buy the power that is cheapest per watt that they can get. it ain't solar, and it ain't wind. The same is true of the EV vs the ICE. People will buy the car they want.

Mandates are not only unconstitutional, they are fascism. The government has no business manipulating automotive or energy markets.
 
Building a solar array doesn't simply consist of the cost of the panels. I used an actual existing large PV array for costing and production figures, not panel ratings nor their cost. That way everything was included.

Cost
of solar panels to produce 4000GW - solar installations are currently $820 per kwh produced (Not per rated panel)
1 x 10^6 x 4000 x 820 ~ $3.3 billion

That is irrelevant when we can use the actual cost and production of an actual PV array to estimate what the cost of PV would be compared to an existing large nuclear plant. That cost calculates out, as I've shown, to $50 billion for the PV array, to $11.5 billion for the nuclear reactor plant. That doesn't include for the PV option the necessary storage or alternate means of production that duplicates the PV array.

The sheer inefficiency and intermittent nature of solar power production makes it grossly expensive to use. It is the single worst way to produce power there is.
 
Building a solar array doesn't simply consist of the cost of the panels. I used an actual existing large PV array for costing and production figures, not panel ratings nor their cost. That way everything was included.

Cost

That is irrelevant when we can use the actual cost and production of an actual PV array to estimate what the cost of PV would be compared to an existing large nuclear plant. That cost calculates out, as I've shown, to $50 billion for the PV array, to $11.5 billion for the nuclear reactor plant. That doesn't include for the PV option the necessary storage or alternate means of production that duplicates the PV array.

The sheer inefficiency and intermittent nature of solar power production makes it grossly expensive to use. It is the single worst way to produce power there is.
I went back and looked at my numbers. You were using Name plate and I was using production so my numbers are off.

But your numbers are still wrong based on EIA actual costs for actual construction from 2020, the last year they have numbers on. The cost of solar in 2020 was about 1/3 of what it was when Solar Star was built. The cost for natural gas generation is more than your estimated cost.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/generatorcosts/

Name plate capacity Construction $/KWhr
Solar - $1655
Nat Gas - $1116
Wind - $1498

But the lifetime costs per KWH is comparable for all 3 and with the current costs of Nat Gas, natural gas may be worse since the cost is calculated assuming gas is at $3.45. The current cost to build a solar farm 20 times the size of Solar Star would be $19 billion.
The current cost to build a 4000MW Gas plant would be $4.46 billion. Then we would have 20 years of fuel costs at your $101 per MW for another $60 billion.
 
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/...st-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

The cost of new solar is actually less then the cost of existing generators in some cases.
grphx_lcoe-07.png
 
ICE fans never count the damage from pollution and the health problems it causes. Asthma, lung disease, cancers and respiratory problems are all exacerbated by fossil fuel burning. The fact is the damage could have been mitigated, but the energy companies bribed, lobbied, and donated to allow them to keep on polluting. Around refineries, there are cancer pockets.
 
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I went back and looked at my numbers. You were using Name plate and I was using production so my numbers are off.

But your numbers are still wrong based on EIA actual costs for actual construction from 2020, the last year they have numbers on. The cost of solar in 2020 was about 1/3 of what it was when Solar Star was built. The cost for natural gas generation is more than your estimated cost.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/generatorcosts/

Name plate capacity Construction $/KWhr
Solar - $1655
Nat Gas - $1116
Wind - $1498

But the lifetime costs per KWH is comparable for all 3 and with the current costs of Nat Gas, natural gas may be worse since the cost is calculated assuming gas is at $3.45. The current cost to build a solar farm 20 times the size of Solar Star would be $19 billion.
The current cost to build a 4000MW Gas plant would be $4.46 billion. Then we would have 20 years of fuel costs at your $101 per MW for another $60 billion.

Wow. KWhrs of power vs GWhrs of power. How impressive.

Solar panels don't last for 20 years, dude.
By the way, the EIA is a government organization, and part of the agenda to force solar and wind power. False authority fallacy.
 
ICE fans never count the damage from pollution
Define this 'pollution'.
and the health problems
Define this 'health problem'.
it causes. Asthma, lung disease,
No, it doesn't. Smoking and tobacco and pot will though.
It doesn't cause cancer.
and respiratory [problems are all exacerbated by fossil fuel burning.
Fossils don't burn. They are not used for fuel. I assume you mean coal, oil, or natural gas.
Burning coal in a modern coal plant only puts out CO2 and steam at the top of the stack. The impurities are removed by simple scrubbers, and the result of that is useful chemicals that are sold to industry.

Burning gasoline in a modern FADEC engine puts out CO2 and water. Some people muck up the engine to put out a lot of soot, or unburned particulates. These settle to the ground rather quickly. Some performance cars still put out a significant amount of nitrous oxide compounds (NOx). Some catalytic converter designs put out sulfur compounds (such as sulfur dioxide). These useless devices are required by Democrats.

Burning natural gas results in CO2 and water. It is among the cleanest burning of the hydrocarbons.

The fact is the damage could have been mitigated,
What damage?
but the energy companies bribed, lobbied, and donated to allow them to keep on polluting.
You still haven't described this 'pollution'.
Around refineries, there are cancer pockets.
No, there are not. You are making shit up.


The Church of Green loves to talk in a vacuum and throw a lot of buzzwords around. You are no exception.


Oh...I might also point out that if you worry about the use of hydrocarbon fuels, quite a bit of it is necessary for every electric car battery cell.
The lithium is strip mined, often in what YOU would call 'environmentally sensitive areas'. It must be purified, often by large amounts of sulfuric acid. It then must be shipped overseas to a battery manufacturer. It is then shipped AGAIN overseas to a factory that combines the cells into packs and builds the car. Then the car must be shipped by ship, truck, and rail to the showroom floor, where you can see them. The tremendous cost prevents you from buying one, so you lease.

Then you find out how inconvenient it all is. You spend most of your time looking for a place to charge the car. The long charging times (power comes from a power station, usually burning coal or natural gas to produce it!) are quite long. Far longer than the few minutes to refuel a gasoline or diesel vehicle. Electric cars are heavy. Despite the use of lithium-oxide batteries, they are very heavy when combined into a pack suitable for powering the car. They are a serious fire hazard too. Fires typically start due to corrosion, which is why EVs subjected to flooding conditions often start catching fire afterwards, just sitting there.

Even at the less than 1% of the cars on the road that are EV's, the power grid is already seeing strains. In the SODC, the power supply is so insufficient that King Newsom told people they could not charge their electric cars.

I've found the EV driver to be mostly quite the snob, thinking he's' somehow 'better' than anybody else. No, you are not. You are just a snob. The planet does not need saving. It's quite big enough to take care of itself. You are just a tiny insignificance compared to the Earth. Your magick car won't save the Earth. It doesn't need saving.
 
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$11.5 billion for the nuclear reactor plant.

I am a strong supporter of nuclear power, but even I have to admit there is absolutely no way to build the first new nuclear power plant in America for less than $100 billion. You are using inflation adjusted cost from an old nuclear power plant, but that is not cost adjusted. The cost of building a nuclear power plant has gone up more than inflation, because we have not done it in decades.

I say we spend the $100 billion, and then the $20 to $30 billion for each additional nuclear power plant.... AND ALSO SPEND MONEY ON SOLAR AND WIND!!!

I know that is a lot of money, but we need to spend money to build a better nation. If done right it is money we spend on paying ourselves to make energy for ourselves.
 
I am a strong supporter of nuclear power, but even I have to admit there is absolutely no way to build the first new nuclear power plant in America for less than $100 billion. You are using inflation adjusted cost from an old nuclear power plant, but that is not cost adjusted. The cost of building a nuclear power plant has gone up more than inflation, because we have not done it in decades.

I say we spend the $100 billion, and then the $20 to $30 billion for each additional nuclear power plant.... AND ALSO SPEND MONEY ON SOLAR AND WIND!!!

I know that is a lot of money, but we need to spend money to build a better nation. If done right it is money we spend on paying ourselves to make energy for ourselves.

Actually the cost is $4 to $6 billion a GW right now. Most of the issues in building one rest on two things:

Politics. The Greentard, anti-scientific, engineering illiterate radical environmentalist Left has done an excellent smear campaign of anti-nuclear propaganda that has to be overcome with the public. The misinformation and bald-faced, outright lies they've spread have turned public opinion against all things nuclear.

Overall cost. This issue has to do with insuring and covering the cost of construction. It really would take government backing of the project to get one into construction. You are looking at 10 to 20 times the cost of other generation plants ($15 to $20 billion). But once built the amount of power generated is so much more that the price per KW falls to a very low rate. For similar solar generation you end up paying 2 to 4 times as much as with nuclear.
 
Define this 'pollution'.

Define this 'health problem'.

No, it doesn't. Smoking and tobacco and pot will though.

It doesn't cause cancer.

Fossils don't burn. They are not used for fuel. I assume you mean coal, oil, or natural gas.
Burning coal in a modern coal plant only puts out CO2 and steam at the top of the stack. The impurities are removed by simple scrubbers, and the result of that is useful chemicals that are sold to industry.

Burning gasoline in a modern FADEC engine puts out CO2 and water. Some people muck up the engine to put out a lot of soot, or unburned particulates. These settle to the ground rather quickly. Some performance cars still put out a significant amount of nitrous oxide compounds (NOx). Some catalytic converter designs put out sulfur compounds (such as sulfur dioxide). These useless devices are required by Democrats.

Burning natural gas results in CO2 and water. It is among the cleanest burning of the hydrocarbons.


What damage?

You still haven't described this 'pollution'.

No, there are not. You are making shit up.


The Church of Green loves to talk in a vacuum and throw a lot of buzzwords around. You are no exception.


Oh...I might also point out that if you worry about the use of hydrocarbon fuels, quite a bit of it is necessary for every electric car battery cell.
The lithium is strip mined, often in what YOU would call 'environmentally sensitive areas'. It must be purified, often by large amounts of sulfuric acid. It then must be shipped overseas to a battery manufacturer. It is then shipped AGAIN overseas to a factory that combines the cells into packs and builds the car. Then the car must be shipped by ship, truck, and rail to the showroom floor, where you can see them. The tremendous cost prevents you from buying one, so you lease.

Then you find out how inconvenient it all is. You spend most of your time looking for a place to charge the car. The long charging times (power comes from a power station, usually burning coal or natural gas to produce it!) are quite long. Far longer than the few minutes to refuel a gasoline or diesel vehicle. Electric cars are heavy. Despite the use of lithium-oxide batteries, they are very heavy when combined into a pack suitable for powering the car. They are a serious fire hazard too. Fires typically start due to corrosion, which is why EVs subjected to flooding conditions often start catching fire afterwards, just sitting there.

Even at the less than 1% of the cars on the road that are EV's, the power grid is already seeing strains. In the SODC, the power supply is so insufficient that King Newsom told people they could not charge their electric cars.

I've found the EV driver to be mostly quite the snob, thinking he's' somehow 'better' than anybody else. No, you are not. You are just a snob. The planet does not need saving. It's quite big enough to take care of itself. You are just a tiny insignificance compared to the Earth. Your magick car won't save the Earth. It doesn't need saving.
https://www.utmb.edu/news/article/u...ximity,advanced disease or metastatic disease. I can do the rest but you are not worth the effort.

You have a special kind of blind stubbornness including an abysmal lack of knowledge.https://www.greenenergyconsumers.org/drivegreen/learnmore/environmenthealth/publichealth
 
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I am a strong supporter of nuclear power, but even I have to admit there is absolutely no way to build the first new nuclear power plant in America for less than $100 billion.
Then at least do your homework.
Two plants currently being built in Georgia are being built for a total of $14 billion for BOTH of them.
You are using inflation adjusted cost from an old nuclear power plant, but that is not cost adjusted. The cost of building a nuclear power plant has gone up more than inflation, because we have not done it in decades.
These plants are currently being built.
I say we spend the $100 billion, and then the $20 to $30 billion for each additional nuclear power plant.... AND ALSO SPEND MONEY ON SOLAR AND WIND!!!
Who is 'we'?? Do you have a multiple personality disorder?
I know that is a lot of money, but we need to spend money to build a better nation.
Who is this 'we'????!?
If done right it is money we spend on paying ourselves to make energy for ourselves.
A nonsense bunch of random words. No apparent coherency.
 
Here is Lancet on the problem. I maintain you are so far out in right field that you have no idea of the truth. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...sil-fuels-kills-millions-of-people-every-year Your ignorance is part of the problem. You are as usual wrong dudette. I give you highly rated sources an your right winners makes you attack them with lies. How righty.

The Lancet has become a questionable source of late. They have had to make retractions and apologies for many of their articles being anywhere from inaccurate to outright false.

The Lancet has made one of the biggest retractions in modern history. How could this happen?
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...tions-in-modern-history-how-could-this-happen

The Lancet retracts Andrew Wakefield’s article
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/la... remained as part of the published literature.

That the Daily Kos, a radical, far-Left source on its own, is citing this doesn't build any confidence in the story.

Aside from that, when a medical journal starts publishing junk articles on Gorebal Warming, you have to wonder if they are more interested in politics than medicine.
 
Lancet is fine. They are the oldest and most esteemed medical journal. They write on many subjects. They did not write a junk story about global warming. It was about health and the impact of auto exhaust.
 
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