Good stuff.
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Check me if I’m wrong here, but believe they’ve been doing this for a few years with the tides in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia.
yup europe has been doing smaller versions of this for a while now IIRC. I mean it makes sense to use the constants that happen with currents and wind. still can’t replace nuclear…yet but until we get a good system of storage that doesnt’ take up a huge amount of floorspace solar just isn’t quite there yet.
Solar is best at the individual level vs solar farms.
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We’re closing in on 60% of electric supplied by wind in IOWA. Pay back is quick…
" in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online."
Not sure, but isn’t the only beef with solar energy is the disposal of old panels?
On the wind turbines / birds arguement, those turbines don’t spin like a table fan. Its thinning the gene pool in letting the dumb ones fly into them.
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I don’t have any data on this project specifically, but most of these technologies tend not to be scalable economically. The up front capital cost is often as much as the lifetime generation potential.
That’s okay for one-off, pat-ourselves-on-the-back-for-being-green PR projects, but it’s not sustainable in any meaningful way.
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oh I agree but you’d need supplemental for evenings especially in really warm states running AC at night. although batteries have gotten a lot better but ACs just burn thru juice.
The math doesn’t seem to add up.
In takes years before they reach the “break even” point. But, the good news is after that, any power they generate is essentially free.
Wind/solar can be great additions to a power grid BUT they can’t be the only sources of power. You need continuous power. You have 2 choices to power generation:
1 - have the ability to generate continuous power on no-wind cloudy hot days
2 - have black/brown outs
That is why wind/solar CAN’T be the only power sources. You NEED continuous power sources that exceed future power demands.
As long as it isn’t endless green and yellow power, I’m fine with it…
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I think it’s a great idea here in the US instead of having a Billion different power companies, but you know our greedy-ass government will have to get it so they get paid off of it OR we all get billed using it.
You can store energy. Ocean currents are constant.
You do realize what big oil is doing right now right? They get huge government subsidies, pay virtually no taxes on billions of dollars in profit, and are bending us over to appease shareholders. I’m willing to give the government a shot at this point. Besides, It doesn’t have to be one or the other, we can have both private and public energy sources. Competition is never a bad thing.
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Gee, its almost like the cost of the product they are selling jumped in price while their profit margins improve due to the fact that part of their costs are fixed and not related to the product price.
Breaking it down, Barney style.
Product retail price $10
Product cost $4
Fixed operating costs (debt service, advertising, land and plant debt payments etx. $1
Variable operating costs that change with product cost or throughput ( Labor, utilities, etc) $1
Profit $4 or profit is 40%
BOOM! Product cost rises to $10 because Durkadurkastan’s government shut down their supply and there is a squeeze.
Fixed costs $1
Variable costs $1.25
Product retail price moves to $22
Profit now $8.75
Profit % 39.8
GOUGING! OH THE HUMANITY! THE GREED! THE GREED!
The same # of people want the same amount of a smaller supply of a product, one whose input cost jumped sky high.
I should sell at less than the % I was making before because feelings.
Shareholders fire us all, but we all smell like unicorn rainbow sparklies!
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Oh, and is that chart inflation adjusted?
Well, it probably at least sort of does based on exactly what he said.
That’s vastly different than economic payback, which is different yet than unsubsidized economic payback.
In the current event, Inflation is gouging. Inflation overall so far this year in the U.S. is 8.4%. Gas has more than doubled. We produce almost 20m barrels of oil in the U.S and consume just over 20m barrels per day. Sure some of their costs have gone up but take a look at the YOY profits in just the first three months of this year. The second quarter will be even better for them. This is good old fashioned price gouging at its finest.
Oil is a global commodity. Companies that produce it don’t set the price, it’s set by commodities traders, just like corn, iron ore, pork bellies, etc.
This is economics 101 stuff. Supply is all f’d up because of Russia (among other things), and demand is as high as ever.
Of course those that are supplying are making more money, just like farmers make more when wheat prices explode.
If things worked like you’re implying they do, why would oil companies ever not “gouge”? Of they set their own prices and had the power to price as they pleased, why wouldn’t they always price high?
If you want examples of “gouging” look at the rates utilities (and their rate paying customers) are forced to pay wind and solar providers per kW*hr. It’s usually about 3-10X their usual production rate.
Why don’t they gouge all the time? Well because eventually demand would ebb as consumers find cheaper alternatives (walking, biking, alternative fuels, mass transit, etc). Supply is being manipulated by big oil, including OPEC, to increase profits, hence my gouging premise. Oil is a manipulated commodity.
When you factor in all the negatives for oil; climate, health, Geo political unrest, it makes all of the sense in the world to move away from fossil fuels. While alternative fuels may be slightly more expensive today, technological improvements and the reduction of most of the items I listed above demand the move to clean energy. Economies of scale also bring the price down significantly. I look at clean energy cost similar to how I view the cell phone. In the 1980s the cell phone was the size of a brick with limited coverage, limited battery life, and limited functions. Now, a mere 30 years later we see that most people cannot live without a phone attached to them in some manner because of advancements in technology and functionally. Don’t look at alternative fuel cost today, look at the benefits, the guaranteed tech improvements, and improved performance of the future. Let’s try and be good stewards of our planet and future generations.
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yep…back in april of 2020 during the opec/russian oil war when they were overproducing to cause the price to actually go negative someone threatened saudi arabia to stop producing so much to drive the price of oil up to save texas oil jobs. and 10% of GLOBAL output was cut. oil prices took off and haven’t stopped.
However, these same oil companies that have been rolling in billions of profits for years, when this hiccup happened they immediately fired people and shut down facilities, including refineries.
They have not reopened these refineries, creating an intentional shortage/supply issue driving prices up.