The Future is not what it used to be. Although I don’t expect to have a rocket car anytime soon, it looks as though dreams of solar panels and wind turbines powering a green economy are no longer in the future, they are now. I’m working on a new “solutions” piece for Yale Climate Connections, and gathering a wealth of exciting perspectives.
I unexpectedly found myself on a Skype call the other day with S. David Freeman, former chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority, and someone who has forgotten way more about energy than I ever will know. 89 odd years old and spot on.
Turns out he’s got a lot of company these days in heralding the new age of renewable energy.
Large wind and solar power farms have the economics to go toe-to-toe with the cheapest fossil fuel-based power supplies in the United States according to the venerable financial advisory firm Lazard Ltd. Thanks to falling costs and rising efficiency, reports Lazard in an analysis released this week, utility-scale installations of solar panels and wind turbines now produce power at a cost that’s competitive with natural gas and coal-fired generating stations—even without subsidies.
The results appear in the eighth annual update of Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis [pdf], which compares the combined cost of financing, building, and operating power generating plants using a variety of energy technologies. Lazard projects that new utility-scale solar plants will deliver energy at US $72-86 per megawatt-hour, and wind turbines beat that with a cost of $37-81/MWh.
Those renewable energy options compare well against the cost of the most cost-effective natural gas-fired technology—combined cycle plants—which delivers at a projected $61-127/MWh (depending on whether the plant captures its carbon dioxide emissions). The renewables look even better against coal in Lazard’s analysis, which prices new coal-fired generation at $66-171/MWh.
The London-based Financial Times says the message is that renewables arestarting to “outshine” gas. The FT quotes George Bilicic, Lazard global head of power, energy & infrastructure, accepting that renewable energy has finally arrived: “We used to say some day solar and wind power would be competitive with conventional generation. Well, now it is some day.”
Large wind farms and solar plants are now cost-competitive with gas-fired power in many parts of the US even without subsidy, according to Lazard, raising the prospect of a fundamental shift in the country’s energy market.
Costs have fallen and efficiency has risen for solar panels and wind turbines, the investment bank found, to the point that in areas of strong wind or sunshine they can provide electricity more cheaply than fossil fuel plants.
–
However, the economics of wind power have been improving sharply, with its lowest possible unsubsidised cost dropping from a minimum of $101 per megawatt hour in 2009 to a minimum of $37 per MWh today, according to Lazard calculations published on Thursday.The decline in solar costs has been even more dramatic: since 2009 the lowest possible cost of generation from a large photovoltaic solar plant has plunged almost 80 per cent, from $323 per MWh to $72 per MWh. Technical progress and huge investment in solar module manufacturing capacity in China, which created a glut in the global market, sent the price of panels tumbling.
At those prices, in areas of strong sunshine or wind, the costs of unsubsidised renewables are comparable to new gas-fired plants, which are expected to deliver power at a cost of $61-$87 per MWh.
Because solar power is available during the day, and can generate most at times of high demand for power for air-conditioning, it can compete with gas “peaking” plants, which have a cost per MWh of $179-$230, making the comparison even more favourable.
This just in: Saving the planet would be cheap; it might even be free. But will anyone believe the good news?
I’ve just been reading two new reports on the economics of fighting climate change: a big study by a blue-ribbon international group, the New Climate Economy Project, and a working paper from the International Monetary Fund. Both claim that strong measures to limit carbon emissions would have hardly any negative effect on economic growth, and might actually lead to faster growth. This may sound too good to be true, but it isn’t. These are serious, careful analyses.
–Enter the prophets of climate despair, who wave away all this analysis and declare that the only way to limit carbon emissions is to bring an end to economic growth.
You mostly hear this from people on the right, who normally say that free-market economies are endlessly flexible and creative. But when you propose putting a price on carbon, suddenly they insist that industry will be completely incapable of adapting to changed incentives. Why, it’s almost as if they’re looking for excuses to avoid confronting climate change, and, in particular, to avoid anything that hurts fossil-fuel interests, no matter how beneficial to everyone else.
But climate despair produces some odd bedfellows: Koch-fueled insistence that emission limits would kill economic growth is echoed by some who see this as an argument not against climate action, but against growth. You can find this attitude in the mostly European “degrowth” movement, or in American groups like the Post Carbon Institute; I’ve encountered claims that saving the planet requires an end to growth at left-leaning meetings on “rethinking economics.” To be fair, anti-growth environmentalism is a marginal position even on the left, but it’s widespread enough to call out nonetheless.
James Hansen, former Chief Atmospheric Scientist at NASA, has been outspoken on the issue, and pretty much spot on scientifically for 30 years. Lately, he has been extremely politically active, and giving his natural born Iowa conservative bent full scope. He is an advocate of “fee and dividend” carbon taxes.
Conservatives are not the enemy of the planet. Historically they are its best friend. Conservation and creation care are in the blood of most conservatives.
The political divide occurs because conservatives fear that liberals will use the climate issue to increase taxes and government intrusion. Policy prescriptions proposed by liberals stoke those concerns and provide fertile ground for anti-science nut-cases to flourish.
Most conservatives I have met are thoughtful. They do not want to go down in history as being responsible for blocking effective action to stabilize climate. Gaining their support for a rising revenue-neutral carbon fee, which is in fact a conservative approach, is possible.
Approval of a rising carbon fee during the next few years is crucial. It is also feasible. Climate events should help. Although the U.S. has been cool this year, global temperature in 2014 is likely to be the warmest year in the data record. And 2015 should break that record. Extreme climate events are likely to become more noticeable during the next several years.
Most marchers tomorrow will be liberals. The truth they must face is the fact that prescriptive liberal policies have no chance of solving the global climate problem.
Citizens Climate Lobby advocates carbon fee and 100% dividend. Founder Marshall Saunders espouses respect and love for political opponents of a carbon fee, and repeated engagement. CCL is bipartisan and growing rapidly, but it needs more volunteers (CitizensClimateLobby.org).
Will bright sided nuclear cheerleading, off topic trolls ever admit that nuclear is in decline and two to three times the cost of renewables? Does it matter that nuclear has a negative learning curve and keeps rising in cost as renewables keep lowering costs? Does it matter that nuclear capital costs are enormous, and cost over runs are common? Does it matter that nuclear cheerleaders prattle on endlessly commenting on article about renewables, desperately trying to disparage them? Why yes.
Does it matter that Arcus just can’t seem to give it up even after he has made his points so many times and no here is really disagreeing much with them or disparaging renewables? Does he not see that the real cheerleading here is not for nuclear power but for reducing CO2 levels by whatever means? Does he not see that much of the so-called nuclear cheerleading has grown out of HIS misleading and misinformed remarks “disparaging” nuclear power on many threads going back many months? Simply put, anti-nuclear cheerleading breeds pro-nuclear cheerleading.
Does it matter that he is so out of touch with reality that he would say “….prattle on endlessly commenting on article about renewables, desperately trying to disparage them”?
Why yes. I for one miss the “old Arcus” that I could agree with most of the time. Will that Arcus ever return to Crock”?
The real take home point here is that S. David Freeman is a genius, and is correct and salient in his points. And I know that this is true – because he is saying what I have been saying for years here!
He just says it better than I ever could. Especially taking it a step further when he talks about the competitive advantage China will soon enjoy. That should scare the ^%^& out of even the staunchest pro-business conservative.
=> Which means we should all make a concerted effort to talk about it as often as possible.
Ginger – you say you know Freeman is a genius because he’s been saying what you do???
Now we have two geniuses!
S. David Freeman is a member of the rabidly anti nuclear cheering section. At a meeting in Sacramento, Ca on Nov. 18 I asked him why if nuclear is so dangerous does it come out as the safest of all energy producing sources when one counts the numbers of injured and dead from a source? (“How Deadly is Your Kilowatt?” Forbes, 6/10/12)
Others (James Hansen, Michael Mann, James Lovelock (UK) have also done the numbers and say the same thing?
Are we being hornswaggled?
The fossil fuel industry early on became highly concerned about nuclear power.
They quickly recognized it could put them out of business. When a nuclear plant closes, millions of dollars in replacement fossil fuel electricity immediately comes pouring into fossil fuel pockets.