There is a hopeful report out this week that the cost of solar energy has dropped so dramatically that it is not cheaper than wind power in emerging markets like China and India. Indeed, Popular Mechanics is now calling solar energy the “cheapest energy” option. In Chile, electricity is being produced by solar power for $29.10 per megawatt hour–half the price of power produced by coal. These countries are seeing the benefits in the investment into alternative energy sources in both cost and the environment. The pledge of the Trump Administration to expand drilling and “clean coal” use runs against the trend in other countries.
Even if the Trump Administration is resisting climate change research, it can at least recognize the benefits of new technology in combatting pollution and reducing costs. There are jobs to be secured in this green industry and we are not serving our country well by resisting the technological and political movement toward solar and wind power. As the grandson of a coal miner, I am more concerned with getting jobs to West Virginia and Ohio and other states — not propping up industries that are declining. I am still hopeful that the business orientation of the new Administration will see the logic in not allowing these other nations to dominate this emerging market for green technology and alternative energy sources.
Jill, would this be Obama, the DNC, HRC, the MSM and the corporate globalists? =) Sorry, couldndt resist.
Don’t worry Trump and Exxon will be sworn it.
Autumn,
If this will go through, look up refusefascism on twitter.
Darren or JT,
I have tried to post something which is really important and a genuine puzzle to me. There are no bad words or attacks. I’m asking for people’s opinion of the matter. It concerns a group which is trying to keep Trump from becoming president because he is a fascist.
If you see this message anywhere would you please put it on the site? I’ve marked it as OT but a genuine question. I’ve tried several times and it just won’t post.
Thanks.
You’re drinking the KoolAid. Electricity produced by coal costs $.04/ Kwhr; by solar $.26/ Kwhr and that’s with solar getting a $.04/Kwhr subsidy. Do some research or you’ll lose your credibility.
Coal extraction will not be getting cheaper, whereas solar energy will…..
Jay S – I heard that the Ivy League schools were going to require their students to spend their summer working in coal mines to get real world experience. That should cut the price of coal some.
Latest solar PV contract in Chile is for less than US $30/MWh. That is with no subsidy.
I’ve never had many issues with alternative energy. The only question that I had was cost to ultimate consumer. If solar energy is reaching a point where it is cost effective, I am definitely all for it. What ever it can produce as part of our energy mix is a big step in the right long term direction.
The current administration is closing down my coal-fired power plant and the nuclear plant sells most of its power to California. We haven’t built a nuclear plant since the 70s.
I am waiting for the incoming administration to think up some way to tear down wind turbines and criminalize rooftop solar….. Maybe require every house to be heated by coal – “or else” ?
Hurray! Happy to see the cost of going solar going down. I dream of going solar one day in the next few years.
We still have several issues we need to sort out:
1) The grid – as utility companies make less as more and more homeowners go solar, they raise rates to make up for it. The excuse is that they still have an enormous, and growing, grid to maintain, and cannot afford to lose customers. I think the grid might need to change from the utility company providing energy, to a different model connecting individual energy producers.
2) net metering – if you produce more energy than you need and add it to the grid, you should be paid for it.
3) energy storage – if we could store excess energy, to be used on cloudy days, it would be a game changer
4) do we need to maintain laws that require that every home be connected to the grid, even if it generates all of its own energy?
5) toxins – right now, most solar panels are produced in China using some toxic components. Again, we have not-in-my-backyard thinking. We stand on our mighty high ground going solar, but to make that solar, we contribute to the toxic morass poisoning the Chinese and those in Hong Kong. Can we not improve the technology to create solar panels with less toxins?
6) solar farms that concentrate energy as heat are a bust unless they are completely re-worked. They literally fry wildlife.
I have a very complimentary comment to yours that somehow got into moderation. If it does not come through, excellent points and some very good questions!!
Thank you, Brooklin. Solar is very popular here in the West, so we’ve had the opportunity to see its benefits and challenges. I think its issues can be solved, and those solutions will be applicable to other user sourced energy methods.
Get five coal miners’ daughters and train them in treadmill activity. Attach the treadmills to generators. Send the power to Detroit. Have Trump make Ford open factories in Detroit.
The rest of us can boycott cars made outside our borders. Same with underwear. My underwear are Hanes and were made in Vietnam. Those gooks fought to be communist and now they are selling us underwear with a Hanes label. The world has gone to Hell in the handbasket. Next we will be eating rice.
Energy from Thorium
Jerry,
Agreed. But I bet he’d take a bribe. These people are about money and power, not anything else in particular. I say give it to them in exchange for doing something of benefit instead of something destructive.
This isn’t the only or best answer but it’s something.
Newly elected Gov Doug Burgum of North Dakota doesn’t see it that way. A former Microsoft Executive. He’s an oil man. Build more pipelines.
We have everything to gain from using alternative energy. While solar isn’t the best product in some parts of our nation there is geothermal, wind and water. We would create jobs. Our grid is really deteriorated right now and needs replacement. Why not?
I say bribe the energy companies to use alternative energy. Instead of all the subsidies we give them for dirty energy, let’s give it to them for clean energy. Although I resent having my tax money taken to further enrich these extraordinarily wealthy corporations and executives, I would rather it go to something useful than something destructive. So bribe away!
Utah is an example of how old fashioned conservative thinking can work things out for the better sometimes. They figured out it saved money to house the homeless, so they did it.
Trump is an oligarch and not an old fashioned conservative, so I am not very hopeful that he will take this rational approach to energy and jobs. But it may happen if enough actual conservatives and actual liberals (and even fake leftists) start screaming for this.
Ten years from now, I am saving many, many, many, postings, I will be viciously attacking all the idiots on this blog who have dismissed alternative energy. I could do that now quite easily but it will be better when the new economy has set in, when the percentage of those arguing for fossil fuels is down around 10%. For now we have to make it through the idiot DDT, the yugest imbecile to ever be elected President. The US has a surplus of neanderthals. However, Turley is probably just playing with us. There will be a posting stating that alternative energy is not so great, something written by Inhofe or DDT’s new oil/coal/peat baron. Maybe DDT will appoint his youngest son; after all he is a Baron.
“Abusing a president is fair game. It is practically an American pastime.
Abusing his spouse is usually tasteless, but spouses have become political surrogates, and they have to expect a little rough-and-tumble now and again.
But abusing a president’s children? Practically daring the harmful, the hateful and the hideous in our society to make them targets? How shameless do you have to be to do that?” – Roger Simon
Trump’s wife doesn’t strike me as the political type and should therefore not be fair game any more than the kids in my nsho. News comments about her good looks or past life are nasty and utterly beside the point.
issac – going after the President-elect’s minor child is hitting below the belt. You need to take a couple of days off this blog and rethink your priorities.
Interesting to note that quote is from an article written after Obama was elected. Funny, I haven’t seen too many defending Melania or Baron from such treatment. Michelle O has been treated quite kindly for eight years while being adoringly plastered all over magazine covers with fawning headlines and fluff pieces. And despite the numerous outrageous comments Michelle has made over the years she has never gotten the ‘rough-and-tumble treatment’ by the press that Melania has been getting -and her husband hasn’t even taken office yet. Michelle and Hillary like to spout off their motto, “When they go low, we go high.” Bullsh*t.
LRT – maybe Hillary and Michelle have a different definition of high than we do? Maybe they set a lower bar or a real low bar?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/13/africa/trine-crowdfunding-platform/“ut of ideas for stocking fillers? A Swedish tech start up has a suggestion: why not give those in need the gift of electricity?
TRINE, which connects investors with solar power entrepreneurs in East Africa via its website, has launched a Christmas present campaign.
A voucher from TRINE can be invested in a solar power project in Africa, with an expected return of around 6% for the recipient.
The investments start at $26.5 (€25) and the sky is the limit. So far, the company has raised $354,000 (€333,000) towards seven projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
But it’s not just gift vouchers. Launched in February 2016, the platform is open to large and small investors alike.
Co-founder and CEO Sam Manaberi says the idea stems from his own experience of a lack of opportunity for Europeans to invest sustainably.”
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/12/18/business/world-energy-hits-turning-point-solar-thats-cheaper-wind/ Even if the trump administration backs away from solar and moves toward fossil fuels and nuclear, many in the rest of the world are moving to solar.
Really Jonathan you should guit forwarding fake news. Solar energy is so expensive to produce that it has to be subsidized by taxpayers and turbine energy is worse. This is comparable to your totally inaccurate report on Antartica glaciers melting. On the east coast there is melting, but on the west coast the ice mass is rapidly increasing. (I may have the coast vice-versa .
You have heard of the government subsidies the oil companies enjoy..haven’t you. We not taking millions we are talking billion. They also enjoy “leases”. For which they pay almost nothing and don’t forget how they avoid paying taxes and the pollution they leave behind for taxpayers to clean up. Need more info see http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
Melting now on both coasts.
It’s Obama’s fault! That Solyndra thing went pop and that proves solar energy is a scam! trump told me that coal is the way to go! More coal jobs and less renewable energy jobs! Coal is where it’s at. This statement has been brought to you by the friends of trump and ExxonMobile.
Clean energy has always been cheaper than fossil fuel, but it’s much easier to profit from fossil fuel by privatizing the extraction and distribution processes. Such a large percent of the US population depends on profits from fossil fuel – institutional investors, retirement funds, insurance companies, endowments, that rapid divestment would crash the economy. Those investments could be smoothly transitioned to clean energy by the same companies that now engage in dangerous levels of environmental destruction, but profits are likely to decline.
Typo.. I think you meant ‘now cheaper,’ rather than “not cheaper.”