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Saturday, January 14, 2017

Solar Energy is Cheaper!

Image result for solar energyAh, the free market. All those "liberal" economic believers swear by it...until it bites them on the ass.

The overall shift to clean energy can be more expensive in wealthier nations, where electricity demand is flat or falling and new solar must compete with existing billion-dollar coal and gas plants. But in countries that are adding new electricity capacity as quickly as possible, “renewable energy will beat any other technology in most of the world without subsidies,” said Liebreich.

At this point it doesn't really matter if you "believe" in climate change or not. The free market has accepted the settled science.

1 comment:

Nikto said...

Solar is also cheaper in some parts of the United States, such as Hawaii, because transportation of fuels is so expensive -- it takes a lot of energy to transport all that solid fuel across an ocean.

Depending on ever-fluctuating oil prices, solar and wind can be cheaper on the mainland as well, especially in places like Texas, where there's a huge base of wind turbines.

With cheap natural gas looking like it's here to stay for a while, gas turbines can be used to generate power when renewables are offline. The plus side is that methane can be generated renewably in a number of ways, which means that those turbines will be useful even if we stop extracting natural gas from the ground.

All of this means the end of coal, which is the dirtiest, most destructive, most dangerous and most unhealthy source of energy we have. Just ask all those coal miners with black lung disease, and the millions of Chinese who have to hide indoors all winter long from the thick, choking clouds of coal smoke.