Get In Now: Solar Thermal Energy Investments Will Make You A Mint

Let me spell it out for you. The capital cost is the cost of the plant over the financing of the plant. That is very long haul.

Yes and they are not equal.

No its not. Solar thermal is by a large margin. Nuclear is only the most expensive form of conventional generation. You need to get your facts straight.

No they are not. Natural gas us substantially cheaper than coal, hydro, and nuclear but it has higher fuel costs. Coal and hydro are very close. Nuclear is higher but still compeative because of its low fuel costs. In the end most of the conventional forms of generation are close when all costs are taken into account.

The reason we have the various forms is for reliability and that isn't diversity for diversities sake. Coal and nuclear are great for base load. Natural gas reacts faster than coal and nuclear so it is used for peaking. Hydro not being combustion is very stable. In the event of a total blackout the hydro units are usually still be up and running or can be brought up very quickly while the combustion units have to spinn down and cool off. Hydro is the backbone of a system when everything is going to hell in a hand basket. You see its not just diversity for diversities sake. Each form of generation has its own role in the system. Solar thermal brings nothing to the table. As far as system integration goes it functions like coal and nuclear at a much higher cost. It doesn't bring the ramp rates of natural gas or the stability of hydro. Its just more (*)(*)(*)(*) that can go wrong.

Its a very viable option for base load and far cheaper than your solar thermal.

No they are not like I said; natural gas is cheep but higher fuel costs, hydro is more expensive with no fuel cost, and coal is in the middle. In the end their $/MWh is pretty close.

Only in you diluted mind.

Paying the huge financing off over 30 years at 6% interest isn't free. Fuel cost only makes up a small portion. And your belief that solar thermal can compete with natural gas, coal, hydro, and nuclear on capital cost is lubricious. Saying it can doesn't make it so.

 

Since I've been having a fun time destroying Silhouette in this thread lets examine the major flaw in Silhouette's logic.

Silhouette argues that solar thermal is superior solely on the basis that the fuel is free. But the problem is that it isn't.

If I go out and buy natural gas at an agreed upon price with a producer what am I paying for? Well lets begin.

I go to a producer looking to secure a contract for natural gas to power my natural gas turbines. I start with a lowball offer of $2/MMBtu. The producer comes back and says no. They lose money at $2/MMBtu. We haggle back and forth and eventually agree at a price of $3/MMBtu. Now what have I paid for at $3/MMBtu. Well I've paid for what it cost to bring fuel to my turbine in a usable form. I've paid my suppliers capital costs, O&M, and a little bit of profit.

Now what are we doing with solar thermal. Are we getting free fuel??? Well not really. Instead of paying a fuel cost to a supplier the majority of which pays the supplier's capital costs and O&M we have instead folded our fuel costs into our own capital costs and O&M. We aren't really getting free fuel. We have just cut out the middleman.

Solar thermal has two parts it has its conventional parts like the steam turbine, and its unconventional parts like the solar array, collector, liquid salts, heat exchanger. What are those unconventional parts??? Well they are what is required to deliver the fuel(the solar radiation) to our turbine in a usable form(steam). Its what I'm basically paying for when I buy a MMBtu of natural gas.

Natural gas has a capital cost of about $18/MWh and a fuel cost of $46/MWh and a low O&M of about $2/MWh

Now lets look at solar thermal

The capital cost of solar thermal is around $250/MWh, O&M is about $45 and fuel is 0.

Why is the capital cost and O&M so high. Well because the fuel isn't free. Instead of paying the middleman's capital cost and O&M for fuel you are now paying you own. All that extra cost is going to the unconventional components. All the extra cost is going to delivering the fuel(solar) to our turbines in a usable form(steam). Our "free" fuel is costing us $277/MWh.

So much for free!

 

There are more important costs than simple economics - environmental for a start. With Solar thermal you do not have to worry about fly ash residue, mercury, Admittedly natural gas is lower in all of those problems but, as you pointed out, it is still an expensive option compared to coal

 

Don't do it now. They're losing their shirts. Wait 5 or 6 years and then see how they're doing. You might be able to ride it up again once everyone has forgotten and then get out of it fast.

 

You can 'destroy' Silhouette all you like but solar thermal's free superheated steam-driven turbines each and every single day the sun shines cannot be mathematically defeated. For instance, with solar thermal [to which you are so oddly and tellingly opposed without a single viable reason other than obvoius investment in the wrong types of energy for the 21st Century] in India, if you have 9 months of free energy you are trying to convince India that that "isn't worth it"! ..lol... I don't know whose calculator you're using but mine says if a nation doesn't have to pay for energy fuel for 9 months out of the year, that nation is going to be very hard to beat on the global market.

Your move.

 

I've mathematically defeated it six ways from Sunday and it only took basic arithmetic.

Your denial is heavy in that one. $277/MWh extra to deliver the fuel to the turbine. That is fuel cost folded into direct cost and O&M because you are paying for it and not buying it from a supplier.

 

Because Silly is on a large-bore IV of "solar power is the answer" KoolAid. It truly is that simple.

 

Just a quick suggestion to all of you that have invested in green chip stocks. Sell them now or cut them into 4" squares and put them by the toilet in case you run out of TP. That's all they are worth.

 

Storing waste is a costly endeavor, but it is not an insurmountable one. Force Nevada to follow through with the deal they made with their eyes open--problem solved.

Material that has a half-life of a million years is very, very non-energetic. It's not the dangerous material.

Because if they existed, they made their simple structures out of wood. It's more likely that there is nothing recognizably "civilization" that existed more than ~10,000 years ago.

That's a little disingenuous.

The problem is that it is neither free nor abundant.

 

Solar thermal has no fuel wastes whatsoever., And speaking of Nevada...it is one of the prime spots to locate mass-scale solar-thermal plants, not radioactive cauldrons that we can in no way rely on 10,000 generations to babysit lest it get out of control. We arent' talking about burying banana peels. We are talking about the most toxic and deadly substances known to mankind, tons upon tons of it and more each day nuke plants are in operation, that have half-lives of hundreds of thousands of years. It gets into groundwater, soils, atmosphere. And like you said, it's expensive. It's expensive to mine, expensive to refine, expensive to transport, expensive to burn, expensive to mitigate, expensive to permit etc. etc. etc. And what kind of a price tag will you put on evacuating Tokyo, Japan forever if and when reactor #4's spent-fuel pond blasts sky high? What will happen to the Northern Hemisphere with 460 tons of radioactive atomized particles suddenly released into the Jetstream whose first destination landwise is the West Coast of the US, and then all the other countries in the Northern Hemisphere in turn?

These problems, these massive and incalculable expenses don't exist when you create steam with solar thermal. The subsidies for nuclear power that taxpayers must bear, but can no longer bear so industry must [investors, the gravy-train is over for nuclear...kiss your bottom line goodbye there] have been described as a complete loss. A negative cash gain. A drain on the US Taxpayer without end. And those costs don't even take into account the 'expensive' storage of waste you correctly cited.

 

Do you actually think that anyone bothers to read your diatribes past the first sentence.

 

So what? It is still wholly incapable of providing enough power. That it has "no waste" is pretty meaningless in light of that. Burning unicorn farts also produces no waste--that doesn't make it a viable power source.

Not required. You do realize what half-life means, right? It's the time taken for an amount of a radioactive material to decay by half into a stable state. The longer that takes, the more stable the isotope; meaning that the waste that we watch for 30,000 years isn't the highly radioactive waste. It's a risk, yes, but a fairly low one all things considered.

My point is that the materials that are "the most toxic and deadly known" (I'm not even going to bother to point out the hyperbole here) aren't the same materials that have half-lives of thousands of years. They're the materials that have half-lives of a dozen years. Or a year. Or 30 seconds.

But unlike solar thermal power, it does provide sufficient power to be a viable replacement for fossil fuels. As for seepage into water, that is largely a solved problem. It's certainly far less problematic than any number of common industrial chemicals, which are at least as dangerous as low level nuclear waste.

Yeah, and it's still cheaper than your pet project. Because solar thermal flat out isn't a viable option. It just can't handle the sort of capacity required. Photovoltaics might because their efficiency can be improved and economies of scale can be leveraged to cut costs way down. They at least have the advantage of producing electricity directly, rather than having to convert heat to electricity. That's one less step involved, which improves efficiency. Photovoltaic solar is at least theoretically viable, if the storage problem could be solved. Probably not on its own, but it's certainly more practical than solar thermal for electricity.

Mind you, solar thermal for heating works pretty well. If you want to heat your house or heat a pool or something it works well enough. It's even useful for residential cooling too, provided you aren't trying to cool the house forty degrees..

That is not a plausible scenario. Spent fuel is by definition no longer part of a chain reaction. Moreover, the thorium reactors would eliminate that possibility entirely by removing spent fuel from the equation--they would use far more of the fissile material than traditional reactors.

What would happen when a gamma ray burst explodes nearby? What would happen when terrorists unleash wish-powered devastation on humanity? What happens when nanites infest the core of the earth and stop it from functioning. You can make up any disaster you want. That doesn't make them plausible scenarios.

Yeah, we just have to go back to a pre-industrial society... because solar thermal flat out cannot produce enough power. End of story. It just doesn't work well enough. I get that you're worried about your investments. You know you're about to take a bath on every penny you've invested in solar thermal. Bad luck--stop trying to foist it off on others.

Having electricity is very worthwhile. Solar thermal cannot provide a sufficient amount of it. Fossil fuels can, nuclear reactors can, some blend of alternatives might be able to do so with natural gas backups. But solar thermal would not be a good choice among those alternatives. It has few prospects. Nothing can be done to make it more efficient, nor can economies of scale substantially decrease its immense cost. It has all of the problems of photovoltaics and none of the advantages.

 

You know with all your un-called for put-downs and demonizing of the messenger, a palpable fear is bleeding through. Some of the nastiest and most dismissive people I've known are those absolutely petrified with fear that their gig was threatened that they lashed out pre-emptively like you two are doing to divert and keep the old status quo intact.

Except that this is the 21st Century and everybody has learned that nuclear power just creates steam. They did a good job in the 20th Century trying to dodge that little-known fact. Sure if anyone did their homework then, they would know but a blanket was kept thrown over that and nuclear was kept mysterious, unfathomable, tricky and dare I say "magical". Now that the veil is ripped off and we have people realizing that Chernobyl and Fukushima were just about creating steam, we have people saying things like "well why didn't Japan just harvest steam from its vast geothermal reserves. The quick answer thrown on that threat to the status quo was "Japan didn't want to bungle up its national parks with geothermal plants!". Why can't we have solar thermal steam in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, California and anywhere else the sun shines? The quick answer thrown on that threat to the status quo is "solar thermal is like unicorn farts or a ridiculous diatribe".

No, actually, solar thermal is a powerful way to created superheated steam with concave parabolic reflectors that concentrate the sun's rays on closed fluid systems to generate very high temperature steam to run turbines just like nuclear did back in the day. Only solar thermal steam is free once the plant is built for a cost vastly less per MW than nuclear plants. Once you build your unbelievably expensive nuclear plant, your cost troubles have just begun. Nuclear is like a disabled industry wholly dependant on taxpayer subsidies in order to just exist. What we're really doing with anyone holding nuclear power shares is taking money directly from the Treasury and putting it into the pocket of the nuclear shareholders. That industry bears very little of its collosal costs.

Solar thermal is free. Now that the taxpayer gravy train has to dry up for nuclear because our economy can no longer sustained this masked theft, solar thermal looks way more attractive. Imagine charging the same rates once charged at a collosal loss to taxpayers for a source of superheated steam that is free? Hello bottom line! Hello global market edge for the United States. Hello prosperity for all..

 

I don't think anyone is insulting you. On more than one occasion I've applauded you for your interest in future technologies and alternatives that might fit certain niches. There is no one solution for everything. Transmitters and repeaters in rural areas are a great application for solar vs fossil fuel generators. if it's cost effective to build a little steam plant on a trailer then I'm sure some private firm will do that. Think of the value to the military, mining camps, emergency relief etc who would no longer need to worry about the logistics of refilling the tanks. They of course would need a source of water.

So, I do applaud you for your involvement in niche technology

 

Read the previous two posts. Either you have and you are pretending not to notice the insulting language, which means what you just wrote is also patronizing or you haven't and you're being negligent in favor of BigNuke and BigOil. Which is it?

"Technologies that fit certain niches"? You mean like all of us relying on the good old steam turbine? That niche? Because last time I checked those turbines don't care where their steam comes from. But humans should. If your steam comes from a collosally-expensive and horrifically deadly fuel source that can poison arable lands and entire regions for 10,000 generations, whose metric tons of yearly waste that consists of the most toxic substances known to mankind we have not clue one what to do with, then you should consider alternative steam sources. Parabolic solar concentrating can cut through steel. It's so hot that you have to locate the closed fluid heat receivers at a given distance from them or the rays would simply cut the steel. The technology couldn't be simpler and easier to construct. The demonstration plant in Bakersfield CA was set up in 7 months, requires no fuel at all and has zero toxic waste.

This isn't a novelty or some pipe dream. This is superheated steam running the same turbines that nuclear or carbon plants do. Your being dismissive of it is telling in itself. Surely you believe in the steam turbine, right?

 

It's entirely called for; my tone is a direct consequence of your willingness to lie and ignore what others are saying. You keep repeating the same tired lines that people have repeatedly shown you to be false. Either you are being intentionally dishonest or you're just not very bright. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt there. An honest idiot is less morally repugnant than a dishonest shill for Big Solar.

I'm not particularly worried about implausible alternatives to existing energy production. If nothing else I could work just as easily with solar firms as any others...

That was never a secret. I don't know of any nuclear power firm that isn't perfectly willing to explain the basics of how their process works. You can find it in science books written for children--that's been the case literally since the 60s. Seriously, it's not like people in the nuclear industry aren't happy to talk about what they do.

By... talking about it extensively in the media and making documentary videos about how nuclear power works? Seriously, that's been around for decades. The nuclear industry has always been willing to talk about how nuclear power works since it entered the civilian world. That's another bald faced lie on your part. You keep trying to spin this story about how nuclear was trying to "hide" the fact that it used steam to drive turbines. That's utterly absurd. I've got a book in my bookcase that I had when I was like five that explains how nuclear power plants work. Complete with illustrations and pictures.

Because it costs too much for far too little. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to produce low-pressure, low-temperature steam is an utter waste of capital.

It's not "very high temperature" compared to a fossil fuel plant or a nuclear reactor. That's the problem. It's not nearly hot enough to produce enough steam at high enough pressures to provide enough force to drive enough turbines to replace nuclear generative capacity--solar thermal could not even replace the capacity provided by nuclear power, to say nothing of fossil fuels. That's your problem. Solar thermal technology just isn't good enough, and can never get much better, because it's already kind of hit its limits. Photovoltaics might be a different story, because there is still a lot of room for technical and manufacturing improvements. They're also deploy-able more easily in small numbers. You don't have to have every panel installed in order to start with photovoltaics. You can go back and add more very easily at a later point. Not so with solar thermal. Moreover, photovoltaics can be installed on land already being used for other purposes--efficient solar thermal systems require the facilities to be purpose-built for that task. It's not that hard to fit solar panels on a building--it's really not practical to do so with useful solar thermal systems.

That's a flat out lie. There is no other adequate description for that statement. A purposeful, unequivocal fabrication.

All electrical generation is taxpayer subsidized. Coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, whatever. You act like your pet projects are dependent on government subsidies.

Most countries just have nationalized power companies, you know. It's not uncommon for electrical generation to be subsidized by governments. That's more common than not, actually. It's why I think the people (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)ing about the solar subsidies are hypocritical--because the alternatives are also subsidized. This does not change the fact that nuclear power is less expensive per kwh than solar thermal.

It's anything but free. It's one of the more expensive methods, actually. More than nuclear, more than photovoltaics, more than natural gas, more than hydroelectric.

Yeah, I am imagining the costs of solar thermal being passed onto the customer. It's why I'm so (*)(*)(*)(*)ed opposed to it. I don't want to pay more for my electricity than needed. You're proposing a plan that would increase the cost of electricity for no apparent reason.

 

good grief; now you attack me??? What problem do you have with targeting certain niches? If there is an application which can cost-effectively be satisfied where is the harm? I appreciate your agenda against fossil fuels but it's not as if you can throw the switch tomorrow. Your proposed solar will not work everywhere and you insult everyone to imply that it will. So, target the niches, work out the bugs and let's go. It could possibly be one of many methods to meet the demand for energy, and what's wrong with that?

 

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It's a novelty power source and will be collecting dust in 20 years. it will be remembered as Obama's Folly!

 

Okay, so I looked at the solar thermal powerplants using fresnel lens in the US and came up with Areva Solar that has a powerplant outside of Bakersfield California. From an investment standpoint I needed to know the stock prices for Areva so I looked up the past 12 months.

http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/equity-charts?symbol=us:ARVCF



So over the last 12 months the stock price has gone from over $45/share down to below $18/share. That doesn't look like a very good investment to me. When a stock loses about 60% of it's value in a single year we have to assume that investors are getting out of it for a very good reason.

 

perhaps. Or, they may find a way to scale down the size for a cost effective alternative to generators at remote locations. It does not mean that the purchase price must be similar. There is some intrisic value to operating costs and if one can deploy a power source for certain niches which historically are a pain to service, then why not? It is far from convenient to transport fuel to a generator where there is no electric grid

 

Like I said, steam turbines aren't "niche" power sources. They are THE power source for centralized utilities.

You remember me saying they were a demonstration plant. I know you remember that. Hard to look up the long term performance of an industry kept slammed in the dungeon like Cinderella while her two ugly stepsisters try to continue to convince thei world that their steam is the only steam that makes the world move..

 

I have a clothes line , does that count ?

 

It's been done for decades but realize that the cost per Kwh of solar thermal or solar PV energy is about 2 1/2 times the cost of coal or nuclear power. Yes, the cost of transmission lines must be balanced because they are not cheap and sometime alternative sources are preferrable based upon a cost/benefit analysis.

Where solar thermal shines is in things like heating swimming pools, hot water for domestic use, and space heating. This is where the money is and not in large scale electrical power production.

 

Only if it came with operating instructions written by the Chinese.

 

most still run on natural gas or other fossil fuels. Solar isn't cost effective but in certain niche applications the convenience may outweigh the increased costs. IMHO the OP wants to believe that we can just convert away from fossil fuels but that is absurd at best. Solar is perfect for extending the swimming season of pools and other specific applications.