I do see a valid role for solar thermal certainly, but in the Australian context 13 or 11 cents per kWh is far too expensive to be viable at present. It's comparable to nuclear costs, but more expensive than coal or gas.
I suspect you are right there.
I don't follow. If you extend the expected life of anything capital investment out to infinity, the initial outlay is always irrelevant. But the things do not last forever, coal station, nuke station, or fancy RE station. I also don't see how you came to the conclusion that if you factor in labor costs of RE vs coal 'they are pretty clear winners'. No they are not. The labour required to build them must be factored in if the debate is 'which energy source is more efficient as a whole'.It's the financial system that is stopping alternative energy, not the technologies per se. We can already generate electricity with less labour than is required for black coal or gas, but the financial system rewards a reduction in up front cost rather than a reduction in total labour inputs.
sorry but if singapore is NOT the central planning at his best, tell me why; I wish we had more central planning when stuck in traffic jam in Brisbane, believe me...This is not a black and white case, and this applies to alternative vs coal; remember the billions of subsidies going to mining here (fuel excise, etc); this might explain the US vs aus cost differences.......
Central planning is the economic system where ownership of property is centralized in the hands of the state, which then controls the allocation of resources. You are perhaps confusing this with 'planning a city'. Singapore is highly free market. And yes, I f*cking HATE traffic jams.
Agreed that coal is cheaper, but only because of the desire for immediate return and profit (reflected as interest on loans etc).
The time value of money is important. You seem to think it is some kind of trite inconvenience that needs to be circumvented. There is a reason why interest rates exist - because humans have finite lives. An asset now is worth more than an asset in the future because of this.Agreed that coal is cheaper, but only because of the desire for immediate return and profit (reflected as interest on loans etc).
Here's an example. Spend 30,000 man years of labour and get power for 90 years with virtually no ongoing input. Or spend 1,000 years of labour each and every year, a grand total of 90,000 man years of labour to produce the same power. They are the actual figures for a particular hydro scheme versus gas / coal.
In practice we do the latter, we use 90,000 man years of labour, only because the alternative option involves spending virtually the whole lot up front and "interest" then becomes a real killer.
We are not using the lowest labour input sources of energy today. We are using those which are "cheapest" once the interest is factored in. One fundamental characteristic of virtually all non-fossil fuel energy systems is that they have huge up front costs and very low ongoing costs. Take out the interest and they are already a clear winner in terms of labour hours worked etc.
This is the reason why, in the Australian context, Tas and Vic historically dominated the cheap power game. They built capital-intensive hydro and brown coal power schemes which cost basically nothing to run once built. It's no secret that Hydro Tas has ongoing costs around 0.2 cents per kWh generated and that it's even lower for some of the big brown coal stations in Vic. That contrasts with the roughly 4c value of bulk wholesale electricity, and the more than 20c you are paying at home.
Give me 0% financing and I'll give you renewable energy no worries. Charge me 20% on the loans and even coal becomes an outright dud and we're better off burning expensive gas or even diesel.
If the electricity industry in this country was starting from scratch then there would be no brown coal used in Vic and very little hydro in Tas since neither are viable under present accounting arrangements. Instead, we'd have far less heavy industry in both those states, and what power they do use would be supplied through transmission lines from NSW and local gas-fired generation.
And we'd never have built the Snowy scheme either under current accounting standards. Nor would we build any other renewable energy scheme. Black coal (which is cheaper to build but requires far higher lifetime labour than brown coal) and gas are all that stacks up under a system which favours high ongoing costs over high upfront costs.
Perhaps that is like saying 'wheels don't roll because they are round, they roll because they are circular'. Infinite lives and the lack of requirements to satisfy 'current needs' are part of the same hypothetical situation. In a world where you literally have 'all the time in the world', when actions occur would not be important, and hence discounting would be unnecessary. As I said, given that this is not the case:
tothemax said:
http://www.financeprofessor.com/financenotes/timevalueofmoney.htm
A fair point, but try to explain this one (real example that's relevant to the uranium topic).
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