Renewable power is cheap because it also receives massive government handouts in the form of tax credits.
Unsubsidized solar and storage is today in much of the world cheaper than coal and fossil gas.
The renewable subsidies stil existing simply add fuel to the already raging fire that is renewable buildout.
Where are all these 14 day full load capable storage plants being built?
I’m not saying they aren’t, I am saying I don’t see the data.
Here BESS for $63/kWh installed and serviced for 20 years.
https://www.ess-news.com/2025/01/15/chinas-cgn-new-energy-an...
https://www.ess-news.com/2024/12/09/powerchina-receives-bids...
China installed 74 GW comprising 168 GWh in 2024. In increase of 250% compared to 2023.
https://www.ess-news.com/2025/01/23/chinas-new-energy-storag...
After hitting a plateau storage is now unlocking massive reductions in fossil gas usage in California:
- Gas is down 45% v '23 and 25% v '24
- Batteries up 198% v '23 and 73.4% v '24
https://bsky.app/profile/mzjacobson.bsky.social/post/3lnw3hs...
In the US in 2025 storage was expected to make up 30% of all grid additions. Before Trump came with his sledgehammer of insanity.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64586
No one generally expects more than a couple of hours of storage to be needed. But for the fun exercise let’s calculate what spending Vogtles $36.8B on equivalent renewables, as in TWh delivered, and the storage gives.
That makes the renewables come out to about $9B.
With storage costing $0.063B GWh and having $28B to spend we can build 444 GWh storage.
That is the equivalent to running Vogtles two new reactors for 10 days straight.
In this calculation we don’t even bother with Vogtles O&M costs compared to near zero for renewables and storage.
Do you now understand how incredibly expensive new built western nuclear power is?
storage for 12 hours and we are 80% there. If you don't like 80% solutions then please don't participate in society as it's only working on those.
If we included the cost of cleaning up fossil fuel byproducts… well, we don’t even know how much it will cost to clean up all that carbon.
Then we will have to work out how we bill the international relations cost of having to deal with petrochemical producers…