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Posted By: enginerdI expect we will need fossil fuels to become much much more expensive before solar cells are competitive except in certain niche markets.Don't be so sure. PV costs continue to fall dramatically. If people go after CO2 sequestration with coal and block new nukes, cost parity between PV and grid power w/o subsidies will probably occur within the next ten years.
Posted By: joshsPosted By: enginerdI expect we will need fossil fuels to become much much more expensive before solar cells are competitive except in certain niche markets.Don't be so sure. PV costs continue to fall dramatically. If people go after CO2 sequestration with coal and block new nukes, cost parity between PV and grid power w/o subsidies will probably occur within the next ten years.
Posted By: AngusYes, that is true. 20-25 years ago the average rate in the USA was $0.05 / kWh, now it is around $0.12 nationwide, while in NIMBY California it is over $0.20 and incrementally as high as $0.62.Posted By: joshsPosted By: enginerdI expect we will need fossil fuels to become much much more expensive before solar cells are competitive except in certain niche markets.Don't be so sure. PV costs continue to fall dramatically. If people go after CO2 sequestration with coal and block new nukes, cost parity between PV and grid power w/o subsidies will probably occur within the next ten years.
I agree, but the unstated corollary is that the cost of electricity to the consumer will also go up. I would not be surprised to see the $0.35 /kWh that some countries now pay become universal.
Posted By: AngusCan you explain $0.62? You can sell power from an unsubsidised 500kW diesel plant for less than that.California developed policy about 25 years ago aimed at saving electricity. The investor owned utilities did not like that idea. So what California did was to cut a deal where they guarantee the utilities ever higher profits for selling less and less electricity, IOW price supports. For residential customers they enacted a set of billing tiers. At the lowest tier people pay a fairly reasonable rate of about $0.12 / kWh. However that is only for about the first 300-350kWh / month. the next four tiers ratchet the rate up to the quoted $0.62 during the afternoon from April to October for all usage above about 1000kWh / month. An average home in California uses almost 1500kWh/ month. At the same time, California offers very generous tax subsidies for PV installations, and almost all of California has pretty high insolation. This makes California a very attractive PV market.
Posted By: AngusWell, it's easy here because we have both mountains and water. I understand California lacks one of the two. I would imagine that we would soon be seeing some solar thermal either in California itself, or in Nevada. They seem to be making good headway in Spain and in North Africa with it.California has a bunch of loonies who keep suing to prevent such projects from going forward.
Posted By: joshsSo don't be surprised by your surprise. Arnold late of "oops what is a kon-dom?" was a big proponent of alternative energy plants in the Mojave Desert. One NIMBY lawsuit after another has stalled most of those projects. The result is that California continues to import power from dirty coal plants in the Four Corners than it would without the idiotic lawsuits.
Posted By: alsetalokinClafinornians are environmentally cous-cous.