Friday, September 12th, 2014
Stephan: This is lovely good news about the transition out of our carbon energy addiction. The report presents what I think is an accurate assessment of the Non-carbon Energy Trend.
In spite of constant government coddling, endless subsidies, and the huge sums available to buy influence, along with ads to protect its dominance, carbon energy is quickly becoming uncompetitive. One can only wonder where we would be now if the attempt Jimmy Carter made to shift away from carbon had not been blocked by Ronald Reagan, whom I believe history will identify with the beginning of the decline of America. In any case, in spite of everything non-carbon will prevail because it is cheaper, and easier, and doesn't cause climate change. There will also be a little discussed effect: an increase in wellness as the diseases caused by carbon decline.
The real monster in the closet is nuclear waste. Nothing proposed actually deals with the problem, and solar and wind will help only marginally. We haven't a clue what to do with waste, and the timebomb is ticking. Tanks leak. Pools degrade. An how does one really calculate the costs? How does one project expenses for something that is deadly for 10s of thousands of years? Finding a solution to nuclear waste within the next 15 years is going to become an urgent issue.
Happily, by then we will have dealt with a large percentage of carbon usage, as the report describes.
Solar power has come a long way in a short period of time. Just five years ago, the bulk of the energy community viewed it as being unreliable, expensive and difficult to source. Without massive government subsidies, utilities generally shunned solar, sticking with more traditional and reliable generation, namely, coal and natural gas. This was despite fossil fuels trading at or near record highs of $10 per mmBtu amid strong demand and tight supplies. If solar couldn’t even beat natural gas when it was trading that high, chances were it would never play a significant role in America’s energy mix and would only be economic through governmental intervention.
But five years on, America’s energy landscape looks significantly different. Natural gas has come well off its pre-recession highs and is now trading steadily around $4 per mmBtu, with little to no volatility. Oil and coal prices dropped as well. Given this, one would surmise that solar was now even farther out of the money. Surprisingly, though, the economics of solar power have changed at a much faster clip, and are now close to achieving pricing parity with cheaper natural gas in several places throughout the United States.
No doubt, over the last decade, […]
