Why renewable energy won't work.

[mrstickball]

Troll_Whisperer said:

Kasz216 said:

Troll_Whisperer said:

???

Let's try again:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia_renovable_en_Espana#Coste_de_las_energ.C3.ADas_renovables

Anyway, I found you a link in English:

http://dialogue.usaee.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=85:renewable-subsidies-do-they-create-or-destroy-jobs&catid=35:v17-no3&Itemid=78

'Professor Alvarez claims that Spain has spent over $36 billion (€25bn) so far to subsidize renewables'. That's from a guy who's actually critical of renewable energy and argues it destroys jobs. I can't tell whether that's true or not I have to admit.

Yeah.  Keep getting errors trying to translate it.

Also there is this

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125193815050081615.html

 

200 million a year in subsidies.

until 2008 at 1 billion.

With no actual mention of how much this solar power costs outside of JUST subsidies.

 

For example how much the average consumer pays vs oil/coal/even wind.  Or how much they pay over those if you removed the price jacking on other energy to make solar attractive.

From what I understand: Maintaing wind power for 50 years is going to be much cheaper than buying fuel for 50 years. Even if it costs €350bn (a whole year's budget) to go 100% wind power, that pretty much means that you'll save huge amounts of money on fuel imports for ages. Once the investment is done, maintaining it is very cheap. What's expensive is building it.

Even on a yearly basis Spain was gaining when it was investing most, according to that Wikipedia article (from Babelfish, copy-pasted part of the text):

Thus, during the year the 2008 premiums to the renewable ones ascended to a total of 2,605 million of euros. Nevertheless, due to the use of native resources, this sector produces significant savings when not concerning fossil or nuclear fuels (2,725 million Euros in 2008), and in the wholesale market of the electricity (by the priority of this type of energies against the conventional ones, 4,919 million Euros in 2008).

Once no more new infrastructure is needed, costs will go dramatically down, also for the consumer. A few billion euros is really not much when we're talking of yearly budgets in developed countries.

I'm talking about wind, solar power is not that big even in Spain and I admit even I don't believe is feasible right now.

This is from what information I have available, nothing more. I know the wikipedia is not always the best source, but this is what I got.

Ah, but at what time do you not need any more capacity?

The problem is that if you balance out costs over the lifespan of a wind turbine, it is still marginally more expensive than something like Nuclear.

As per: http://nuclearfissionary.com/2010/04/02/comparing-energy-costs-of-nuclear-coal-gas-wind-and-solar/   cost per KWH of wind power is approximately $0.09. Comparatively, coal and nuclear are less than half the price. Also, this assumes that one can build wind power to their hearts content. Much like solar PV and solar thermal, I wonder if there is enough land to support enough turbines at the current costs.