[ExI] Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil)

[Mirco Romanato]

Il 28/02/2012 08:27, Eugen Leitl ha scritto:

> I don't get it why people still think solar is expensive:

Maybe, the fact they ask and need subsides to sell PV solar
installations is a give away of the fact solar is costly and not really
competitive in a free open market.

> it is certainly less expensive than new nuclear,

If you make the solar jump in the loops as you do with new nuclear
plants it would be much more expensive than new nuclear.

Comparing the number of dead per Tera Watt Hour of energy produced,
solar is ten time more deadly of nuclear (counting Chernobyl), then
number of people crippled working on the installation is one or two
order of magnitude greater and the dismantling costs of solar
installation when their working life end.

> and in dynamic large scale
> solar markets it is reliably the cheapest electricity by far during
> peak demand.

Do any foundry use solar for producing aluminium or steel or whatever?
At what costs?

> Apparently almost nobody looked when nuclear France had
> to buy peak power from their nonnuclear neighbor this winter, which
> made a mint as the prices shot through the ceiling.

And so? Germany had a bit more for a few days (probably a few hours for
a few days) in the winter. Just see what happen in the rest of the days
of the year. They needed more power because electricity is so cheap in
France that some people heat their homes with it.

>From Wikipedia:
Due to the general inflexibility of nuclear energy compared to fossil
energy based power plant, to achieve this high load factor, France is
also forced to be the world's largest net exporter of electric power
(exporting 18% of its total production via 10 GW overall of
interconnection capacity[2] to Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain,
and Germany), to use 14.59 GW storage hydroelectricity 4.302 GW of
pumped storage[clarification needed][3], and the EJP load disconnection
tarrif which is allied to the use of about 5 GW of diesel generators in
private hands.[4] (It also has 6.16 GW run of river hydro irrelevant in
this context of dealing with flexibility but is included for completeness)

So, France export 18% of its electric power. And Germany is on the
receiving end. Do Germans are stupid to buy overpriced electric power
from France?

> In fact FiTs are being cut far sooner and far more severely than
> planned because they're eating into power supplier's profits. Their
> whole business model is at stake.

Is this because the Spiegel is writing "Rising Energy Prices Endanger
German Industry"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,816669,00.html

> Solar PV will be cheaper than dirty coal in less than 10 years, at
> which point the whole debate will look very silly in the retrospect.

In the next ten years is not now.
If wishes were horses we would be endangered by their manure.
When, in ten years, PV will produce power at rates lower or comparable
with dirty coal or dirty nuclear we will see. In the interim, it is not
true.

If I'm in high water, being able to swim the next week will not prevent
me from drowning now.

Mirco