Grid emissions hit record low, as renewables displace coal and prices plunge

Originally posted by acorn ↑

Hmmm. That is a pretty poor article considering the supposed qualifications of the guy that wrote it.

Just because he is a TedX speaker doesn't mean much. Michael Shellenberger has a Ted talk and we have demonstrated several times how much of a lying nuclear troll he is.

Wang compares France's spending on nuclear vs Germany's spending of renewables. He doesn't supply data to support those numbers so I'll just have to trust that they are reasonably accurate.

What he doesn't mention is that France's nuclear power assets have been developed and installed over the last 70 years. So you would think that they have got the costs of nuclear dialled in about as good as they can.

The German renewables on the other hand are not far past the Model T stage so he's comparing a fully matured nuclear power system and a quite immature renewable system. He is using renewable cost data over the last 20 years. He admits that himself.
That's hardly a credible comparison.
We know how much renewables have fallen in price more recently. Solar roughly by about 82% since 2010 and similar falls for the cost of wind. Plenty of evidence on the net to support that claim.
He quotes Germany's power prices from 2006 to 2017 so he's selected that very immature part of the renewable development I spoke about.

I would be interested to see a comparison based on the cost of renewable installed today.

He quotes nuclear new build prices in China.

Funny how he doesn't use the example of EDF's ( French government owned ) nuclear power new build at Hinkley Point C in the UK. 20 year build time , crazy cost overruns and a electricity price locked in with price rises for the next 30 years.

He also doesn't mention the cost of storage of nuclear waste. That's not included in his pricing. It also doesn't mention that nuclear waste is still only in temporary storage globally.

Then he goes on to talk about replacement of renewable technology. Once again he is using very old data of very immature technologies that were unreliable. New renewable equipment is much more reliable and efficient than that from 20 years ago. He also forgets to mention that renewables are very totally upgradeable. Given the rate of improvement of renewables it is quite likely that replacing them after 2 decades will give a significant performance improvement. As we've seen with ev batteries and their massive second lives, renewables offer options that big lumbering lumps of nuclear and/or coal stations don't. Build a new nuclear power station and you're stuck with that technology for 40 years including the waste it produces.

Nuclear locations. While the French might be happy with a nuke in their backyard, no one else is. Solar in particular is embedded in the community on rooftops out of site generating the electricity where it is used. Less need for transmission costs like big power stations require.
Or offshore windfarms, which is the new paradigm, are well out of sight, no noise issues, no wildlife issues and are big very efficient machines.

I could go on..........

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Was he a lying greenie troll when working alongside Obama to raise $300B for the green movement.

Seen the error of his way & wants to save the planet.