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

[Kelly Anderson]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:10 PM, Mirco Romanato <painlord2k at libero.it> wrote:
> 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.

Solar is VERY expensive on a per house retrofit basis. And that is how
it is normally approached in the USA. Medium sized 200-500 household
installations is an entirely different animal, and that's going to be
competitive in the next decade.

>> 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.

Nuclear won't work because of the tree huggers. It's DOA, despite
being highly reasonable technology.

> 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.

The number of dead per watt is irrelevant. We kill 1.5 million people
per year world wide using cars (I read yesterday) and we still use
those. Nobody REALLY cares how many people die as long as the light
switch does something. It's a sad commentary, but I believe it to be
true 99.99% of the time. It's like the poor Chinese workers who put
together iPhones... most iPhone users don't give a crap.

>> 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?

A lot of aluminum is smelted near large hydroelectric dams. The TVA
dams were originally built to this purpose. If hydroelectric isn't
solar, what is... ;-)

>> 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.

We don't have a huge problem right now. If we did, we would have $15 a
gallon gasoline.

> 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.

Who is drowning now? I bought gasoline today. It was reasonably
priced. It's all hyped up for political reasons. Do we need a national
energy policy? You bet. Let's stop subsidizing the oil industry. Other
than that, let's just let the market work.

-Kelly