So the energy that is cheaper than coal and driving operating coal plants out of business will make the cost of producing it go up when the share increases?
These mental gymnastics routines are olympic level.
These mental gymnastics routines are olympic level.
>driving operating coal plants out of business
Any specific ones? The only coal plants I've seen get shut down are because of environmental reasons (or age). Some countries, like Germany and China, are re-opening or building new coal plants.
Talking of mental gymnastics - fundamentally, the energy economy boils down to EROI (energy returned on energy invested). It's just wishful thinking that we can replace energy sources that are basically free (coal, oil, gas), with those that have energy payback periods in the mid-double digits of their expected lifespan (solar).
If you're really worried about it, buy a panel from europe, the polysilicon (90% of the energy) comes from hydro, wind, and nuclear powered countries.
Even if all the money for a solar module went to coal generation at chinese or indian prices and nothing else it would pay back that power in under two years.
If the only activity involved in making PV was to spend the entire system cost on lignite and burn it directly at the mine front, it would *still* produce more energy in its lifetime than putting the coal in a coal plant.
It's absolutely laughable that you think you can keep spouting this ridiculous lie.
Where do you get your numbers from?
>it would pay back that power in under two years.
That's exactly the problem. This is a significant portion of the lifetime output of the panels.
>it would still produce more energy in its lifetime than putting the coal in a coal plant.
I'm not arguing that solar panels are a net negative, as you seem to be implying. I'm arguing that the energy economics of a world fuelled entirely by solar (and other renewable technologies - solar is about the worst for EROI) would look very different to what we have now.
You're the one making the insane claims. You back them up.
I certainly haven't made any claims as specific as this without any backup!
Prove new solar in a median location is lower EROI than the median for new gas using up to date info on the whole process and solar cells you would buy for a project started now such as 155 micron wafer mono PERC.
Nope, I said that it's lower than other sources of power, and thus an energy economy based on solar will look very different than what we currently have.
Given that electricity represents a relatively small percentage of our power usage, in the majority of cases (materials manufacture, industry, heating, etc), the EROI of renewables will be worse than fossil fuels.
Then add heat pumps and PV+Heliostat or PV+CSP derived hydrogen compounds to your equation and realise that adding heat and chemical stocks shipped from distant places to the equation makes it favour renewables even more as you can turn 120MJ of electricity and 40MJ of direct sunlight at Chile's 35% capacity factor into 120MJ of hydrogen or 100MJ of Ammonia you don't have to refine. With the heat pump you'd get more low grade heat even if you burnt the fossil fuel for electricity.
Wind + PV is a pure upgrade from an EROI perspective, and electrolysers and CSP are following very close behind.