This is a nice infographic from imgur [click to enlarge]:
h/t Reddit
Climate Progress
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Get ThinkProgress email alerts
About Climate Progress
Edited by Joe Romm, we cover climate science, solutions and politics. Columnist Tom Friedman calls us "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named us one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." Newcomers, start here.
Joe Romm's New Book
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga.
Joe Romm has pulled together the secrets of the greatest communicators in history to show how you can apply these tools to your writing, speaking, blogging — even your Tweeting.
Subscribe to Climate Progress by Email
Powered by NewsWhip
Got a Hot Tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
Climate Progress Archives
About ThinkProgress | Contact Us | Donate
Bravo!!!!
How do we consume 1/10th the energy and generate the same level of prosperity?
A single watt PV peak capacity:
- cost about $8 to install
- generates about 1KWH per year
- 10 cents worth of electricity
- 800cents/10cents = 80 years to return the investment.
To be more generous with a back of the napkin approach, $4 to install and 20 cents worth of electricty (400cents/20cents = 20 years)
Let us take the average and say 50 years to recover the investment?
How far off am I on that calculation?
If we can’t burn the fossil fuels, nuclear has obvious problems, solar is most expensive and wind seems to be a winner…..how do we consume 1/10th the energy and generate the same level of prosperity?
I encourage you to committ one column a week to illustrate how we are reducing consumption while increasing (maintaining) prosperity.
Chris
Chris,
Your install number is out-of-date. Current utility scale (greater than 1 MW) instals are down to $4/W. Extrapolating from recent price declines, an installed system cost of less than $2/W is reasonable in under 5 years. Most of the country will hit grid parity by then.
German solar output hits 10.6 GW. Global wind capacity goes from 17 GW to 200 GW in past decade.
Yet greenhouse gas emissions are rising exponentially! I bet that no commenters are going to figure out why this is so, and why it was predictasble.
(Hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_cannibalism )
[JR: Uhh, no. Try Chinese coal use and U.S. unwillingness to lead on climate.]
Bob Lang… I believe you’re applying a concept that was set out to describe nuclear energy, which has a high cost of implementation and an exceedingly long return on investment.
When we’re looking at solar we are playing a different game entirely where the costs and energy efficiency is improving at a dramatic pace. There’s a good article here.
Germany has installed more wind power capacity than the entire current UK nuclear capacity, and is adding to it at a rate equivalent to more than one new reactor a year. Furthermore, in 2009 alone Germany installed solar photovoltaic systems with capacity equivalent to approximately four nuclear reactors, and it looks like the 2010 figures will be much higher.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/16/nuclear-risks-and-renewable-alternatives
Financial support for the large wind-Vision
Nuclear power is suddenly out, now the government pushes for green energy up a gear. According to an internal master plan to promote offshore wind parks are more clearly than before. Banks and corporations benefit – the consumer pays on it.
Hamburg – The government is embarking on an action program for energy efficiency and renewable energies. One priority is for information from SPIEGEL ONLINE, the offshore wind energy. The huge investments to occur far out in front of the coast where the wind is more constant than on land – and where German Wutbürger can not interfere in giant rotors.
The goal: less dependence on coal and nuclear power.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8& asl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,752193,00.html&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiZtMpKq18FAnoleDArtvDgqbgniA
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,752193,00.html&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiZtMpKq18FAnoleDArtvDgqbgniA
I have to say, to my mind, the primary attraction to renewables is the certainty of costs over the long term. If you’re looking at any form of fossil fuels as an energy source you quite literally have no idea what costs are going to be even for the coming two years. Uncertainty is anathema to business. But with renewables you know exactly what wind and sunshine are going to cost in 10, 20 and 100 years. Zero.
Anyone quoting the payback on solar is only looking at the payback relative to today’s costs of traditional energy sources. That equation is highly volatile looking forward. You might start out with a 10 or 15 year payback but that could completely change in 3 or 5 years if oil prices skyrocket or if a carbon tax is signed into law.
The times they are a changin’ in ways that Bob Dylan could never have foreseen.
For contrast: (and what an amazing contrast it is)
‘The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara River are the Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 on the Canadian side and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant on the American side. Together, Niagara’s generating stations can produce about 4.4 GW of power.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls
On the other hand and not surprisingly wind energy installation in US collapsed in 2010:
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-wind-energy-installations-collapsed.html
Germany’s PV program is brilliant. Sure, figuring out the energy payback on PV can get a little complicated. Was the PV made with clean energy, or fossil fuels? Do we include just past production, weighted as it is to less efficient processes, or do we look at state of the art production today, where the latest plants are managing a dollar a watt at the factory gate? Do we include future production which will be more efficient still? PV is just a thin inexpensive semiconductor in a simple package. By ramping up production, we drive down the costs, even without any breakthroughs.
By aiming at rapid PV growth, Germany has also arranged for the cheapest PV. Currently averaging $3.66/watt installed for 2010 systems under 100 kw. http://www.renewablesinternational.net/cost-of-turnkey-pv-in-germany-drops/150/452/29911/ I’d agree with a $2/watt price in this decade with current trends in Germany, giving grid parity for new PV for most places (not Iceland though) in the next hundred months.
The larger the solar industry becomes, the more basic research will be done. I expect the result of ever increasing research dollars will be that some lab will develop truly cheap PV. Something like a sheet of glass with a semiconductor fused to the underside and water proofed. Something that doubles as a roof tile or siding. Something to put roofs on parking garages and cover shopping malls, schools, commercial and industrial. I think we will look back at all the questions of PV costs and say, first it was dream, then it was expensive, then it was affordable, then it was everywhere.
The potential and all ramifications are impressive.
We should all applaud then copy….the sincerest form of flattery.
@Christopher Yaun
You’re not allowing for the full cost of current power production. Mercury, global warming, etc.
Installing a toilet and sewage system in my house is pretty damned expensive too. I could decide to avoid the cost and go shit on my neighbor’s lawn. But we know where that leads.
Christopher Yaun wrote:
“Let us take the average and say 50 years to recover the investment?
How far off am I on that calculation?”
It depends where you live. In Germany and Austria (where I live) a 3 kWp costs € 3.30 per Wp. That would be around 4,60 dollars. Mind you, with that amount you can buy more in the US than in Austria (gasoline for instance). Of course there’s a (state and municipal) rebate on that of around 1000 euro per kWp.
Electricity costs around € 0.22 per kWh. And for every kWh of solar energy you feed back into the system you get € 0,48 if I remember correctly.
How does your calculation look now?
I’m planning on building a house (of or a family of three) that will have all its energy needs provided for with those 3 kWp of solar panels and 6 m2 of water heating capacity. Yes, heating too. That’ll be true prosperity, Prosperity with a capital P.
Neven,
The feed-in tariff for solar electricity is € 0,38 per kWh in Austria. Thanks to government grants, the photovoltaic panels are paid off within 13 years or so, but you probably know that. Good luck with your Passivhaus!
Wonder what the risk is of having a nuclear plant targeted/bombed in an act of war in the future?
Seems to me that this is probably a significant risk which has been ignored in the risk assessment of nuclear power. Or perhaps is has just been glossed over like the effect of earthquakes/tsunamis on nuclear power in Japan and many other places.
I am sure if they are seriously consider in the risk assessment then Nukes would be non-viable.
Germany Suspends Extension Of Nuclear Power
As Japan grapples with the ongoing nuclear crisis in Fukushima Prefecture, Germany has announced it will suspend its decision to extend the life of its nuclear power stations. http://www.newslook.com/videos/299151-germany-suspends-extension-of-nuclear-power?autoplay=true
#2 Christopher Yaun developed nations are way over consuming.
People had a comfortable life before with far less. And apparently were just as happy if not happier.
Christopher Yaun #2, I believe that you miss the real truth about ‘prosperity’. The planet contains fabulous human created wealth, tens of trillions of it, but it is perversely and destructively maldistributed. The vast bulk is controlled by a tiny parasitic elite, and billions live in worsening squalor. The planet’s several hundred billionaires control as much wealth as the bottom three billion. And in the rich world the middle-classes are under increasing pressure, with US median wages, stagnant for over thirty years, subject to ferocious attacks by the Tea Party/Kochtopus tendency and its political apparatchiki. In Europe, entire populations, in Latvia, Estonia, Ireland, Greece and the UK are being sacrificed to pay off the bad debts incurred by financial mafiosi in various crooked asset securitization schemes and the like.
So, actually, prosperity has disappeared or never existed. The gains in ‘wealth’ from further life-system destruction through neoplastic growth will be expropriated by the parasite class, and little, indeed none, will ‘trickle down’ to the rest. The only hope for any social decency, human solidarity and an end to the auto-genocide of runaway growth is radical redistribution of global wealth. The Right may call this ‘socialism’ and declare it ‘Better to be dead, than Red’, in which case they and their civilization certainly will be dead, and soon.
I would say we are long overdue a second great compression.
15 Neven: I live in such a house. Please look at the work being done by the PassivHouse folks. I would be happy to show you our home in Portsmouth NH. Superinsulated, super tight, passive solar, 3.5KWPV and 2 meters of solar water. Add a fantastic vegetable garden and a great view.
Thank you all for the great responses. Wind is a great winner and solar economics will be too cheap too meter sooner rather than later.
But my point…..negawatts are always the best solution. The payback on not using the KW is somewhere in the past and the return on the investment approaches infinity.
I was hoping that Joe Romm might spend as much “ink” on negawatts as he gives to wind, solar and anti-coal/nuclear/natural gas. We love the technical fix but then fail to turn the lights off.
The combination of wind, solar AND negawatts is an instant winner.
#19 Thats an excellent article Rob and Krugman is optimistic. Lets hope he is right. The flow ons from inequality are huge including ill health and death, e.g. “Unhealthy societies: the afflictions of inequality’ by Richard G Wilkinson, 1996.
Most people think ill health is caused by smoking, over eating etc but these things account for only a very small proportion of the variance. Inequality accounts for the vast majority of it, ME
#22 Christopher — You offered a house tour. We want to take you up on it! Email us at the website provided by my name, please!
On 03/21/11 it was even more, with 11,5 GW in the top hour.
http://www.sma.de/de/news-infos/pv-leistung-in-deutschland.html
In germany the complete PV-system price for small systems (including installation) is currently approximately 2.300-2.700 EUR, medium systems on flat roofs cost around 2.100 EUR (all prices excluding VAT)
http://www.photovoltaikforum.com/angebote-f41/
The value from PV is instant, a different type of service that vast contamination. It has “grid parity” in locations now.
The PV effect was discovered in 1839, the silicon solar cell was invented in 1954 by Bell Labs in New Jersey. If the feds had invested in renewables and efficiency instead of fuels of war (uranium and hydrocarbons) and encouraging increasing consumption via twentieth century “cheap fuel” policy then the world could be sustainable now. Rather than insane and contaminated in so many ways. Too bad war and centralized economic control are so profitable for elites.
Yet, the paradigm of using lithosphere materials for “energy” begins to change. Perhaps a few more sacrifices of global-scale meltdowns are necessary for the gods of unregulated capitalist global corporatism (since we are all such pathetic serfs). Economics is man-made, by mostly theocratic power-crazed men.
Well done Germans! Keep it up, hopefully we’ll follow your lead.
And that graphic (partly) explains why Germany could switch off 8 nukes overnight in response to the Japanese disaster without suffering brownouts.
P.S. Note: the red colour of the graphic does not represent radioactivity levels. ;)
12,2 GW today…
@Chris – While I agree with you that energy efficiency provides our best return on investment, here are some very recent numbers for solar.
I installed a solar system this week in Massachusetts for $5.36 a watt DC.
This particular system will generate 1.1 kWh per year for every watt installed.
Electricity is currently running about $0.17 / kWh here, but has a long-term historical trend of price increases of about 5% per year. If those trends continue, we can expect electricity rates of $0.45 / kWh in 25 years. I’m betting that with China’s demand for coal, we can expect to see much faster rate increases in the future.
Based on those numbers, the system will pay for itself in about 18 years, without taking into account any federal tax credits, state rebates, depreciation or SREC revenue. The solar panels are guaranteed for 20 years and will most likely still be producing power 30 or 40 years from now.
A recent study shows that the externalities of coal produced power exceed $0.17 / kWh. Google – Paul Epstein coal for more details.
I’d be very interested in comparing the true unsubsidized cost of producing electricity from conventional and renewable sources including all externalities. Renewables will look a lot better than what the fossil fuel industry would want us to believe.