When Will We Next See Cheap Energy ?

[Richard Hakluyt]

I can't recall what the feed-in tariff for solar was in Germany, but it was 41p/kWh here in the UK. To be paid by increasing the bills of your fellow electricity consumers. In the UK that would give a return of something like 8-10% (more if you installed in the past few months as panel prices fell). I contemplated fitting solar panels when we had our roof renewed but decided not to on the grounds that it would be an immoral move.

Presumably you could also be hosed down the road if they lowered the rates.

That would be illegal, though I daresay that might not count for much. The period of the feed-in is 25 years btw and the rates halve in April for new installations; the idea being that such installations will be much cheaper due to a economies of scale in the solar sector.

[Tamas]

I can't recall what the feed-in tariff for solar was in Germany, but it was 41p/kWh here in the UK. To be paid by increasing the bills of your fellow electricity consumers. In the UK that would give a return of something like 8-10% (more if you installed in the past few months as panel prices fell). I contemplated fitting solar panels when we had our roof renewed but decided not to on the grounds that it would be an immoral move.

I remember a Spectator editorial which was pretty upset by that "tax the poor to benefit the rich" scheme, which I guess it is indeed so.
An other thing it frowned upon and I very much tend to agree, is "biomass" which in practice entails demolishing forests and burning them.

It is very annoying that due to superstitions we are not depending more on nuclear energy. It is clean and cheap. Altough I guess the latter makes it less appealing for politicans

[Iormlund]

Presumably you could also be hosed down the road if they lowered the rates.

That would be illegal, though I daresay that might not count for much.

It's what happened here. Faced with the need to cut everywhere, the government put a limit on annual production you could sell last year.

[CountDeMoney]

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

[Iormlund]

What?

Dams are an obstacle for both lifeforms (like salmon) and nutrients and thus significantly alter the ecosystem. The best example is the Nasser reservoir in Egypt, which not only has ended the natural cycle of fertilization of the Nile valley fields, but has also had a severe impact on marine populations beyond the delta that depended on its nutrientes to survive.

[mongers]

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

I wouldn't say necessarily  cheap, but the technology exists, can't be un-invented and we have the plants, industry and raw material so why not use it and develop it ?

Actually that's what annoys me about many in the green party and the environmental movement, they have got so wedded to anti-nuclear as an article of faith that anyone question this received wisdom will in short order be cast out as a heretic.

[mongers]

Solar in Germany is a massive misinvestment. The power consumers, i.e. the average citizens (because industrial power consumers get other rates), will have to pay for that shit for the next two decades. Something like 80 billion Euro or so IIRC. It's completely pointless and only motivated by the ideology of the Green Party.

......

Yes call me niece but you'd think in a rare policy area where inputs and outputs can be relatively easily measured, that some degree of rationalism would be used to determine national energy policy; instead the political process seems as 'corrupted', non-scientific, politicised as in any other part of government.   

Yes the whole German solar policy seems a classic example of jesture politics. 

Besides, if they'd changed all of those installations to solar thermal, they could have seen a 2 or 3 times greater energy efficiency.

[Tamas]

Why should it be un-invented? Because of the bomb? You can get right back to learning to lighting a fire with that reasoning.

But yeah I agree, this is the single issue that could keep me away from green movements if all the other idiocy couldn't. They cannot be taken seriously, if they don't prefer nuclear power over anything else. In efficiency and cleanness it just owns everything, and what we need is more of them, so we can shut down all the coal and hydro plants, and make Gaia smile.

[Tamas]

Solar in Germany is a massive misinvestment. The power consumers, i.e. the average citizens (because industrial power consumers get other rates), will have to pay for that shit for the next two decades. Something like 80 billion Euro or so IIRC. It's completely pointless and only motivated by the ideology of the Green Party.

......

Yes call me niece but you'd think in a rare policy area where inputs and outputs can be relatively easily measured, that some degree of rationalism would be used to determine national energy policy; instead the political process seems as 'corrupted', non-scientific, politicised as in any other part of government.   

Please. I would start my usual ramblings here, but they would be cast aside as libertarian foolishness anyway, so I won't bother. You want government telling people what's good for the economy and what's not, and you get exactly what you can expect from that. Embrace your choice.

[Sheilbh]

It is very annoying that due to superstitions we are not depending more on nuclear energy. It is clean and cheap. Altough I guess the latter makes it less appealing for politicans

Nuclear isn't cheap.  It needs huge multi-billion commitment at the start.  There's a reason the world leaders in nuclear power are the French and the leading company is 50% owned by the French state.  Nuclear is to energy what the TGV is to transport.  It may make sense and turn a profit in the long-run but the initial investment and the required commitment is so massive that it's a grand projet. 

If you add in waste disposal and decommissioning then the costs are even higher and the companies involved (and governments) need to commit for 50 years or so.  There's a reason nuclear has driven utilities companies bust.

There's been a lot of studies done that all indicate that nuclear's about as expensive, if not moreso, than gas.

I've family involved in the new nuclear plants being built over here and it's not cheap on any level.

[Razgovory]

Why should it be un-invented? Because of the bomb? You can get right back to learning to lighting a fire with that reasoning.

But yeah I agree, this is the single issue that could keep me away from green movements if all the other idiocy couldn't. They cannot be taken seriously, if they don't prefer nuclear power over anything else. In efficiency and cleanness it just owns everything, and what we need is more of them, so we can shut down all the coal and hydro plants, and make Gaia smile.

You seriously don't understand their concerns?  The problem is NIMBY.  Nobody wants the waste from the things nearby (or even being transported through their area), and few want the plants near their homes due to small but still very real possibility of a melt-down.

Our of curiosity, if the people of an area are forced to leave because of a meltdown, would you support government handouts to help them?

[CountDeMoney]

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

I wouldn't say necessarily  cheap, but the technology exists, can't be un-invented and we have the plants, industry and raw material so why not use it and develop it ?

Once NPP are up and running after the (granted) expensive construction process, they pay for themselves for years afterwards.

[The Brain]

Nobody wants the waste from the things nearby

In Sweden the local communities are happy to have the waste facilities.

[Neil]

Germany's position is just strange, I think it's a throw money in the air and see what happens approach; they have 44% of total world installed solar panel capacity and 14% of the worlds wind turbines, yet those and other renewables (excluding hydro and nuclear) manage to produce just 6% of German energy needs.

Why did you feel the need to exclude nuclear from the 'other renewables' category?  Nuclear energy is only renewable on timescales in the tens of billions of years.

[mongers]

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

We have cheap energy;  it's called nuclear.

I wouldn't say necessarily  cheap, but the technology exists, can't be un-invented and we have the plants, industry and raw material so why not use it and develop it ?

Once NPP are up and running after the (granted) expensive construction process, they pay for themselves for years afterwards.

I like the idea of burning nuclear waste in integral fast reactors (IFRs), more on the politics surrounding the idea there:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-energy-solution