Count on 5% compound growth in demand. Sweating existing assets...

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acwmr

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25/03/17

07:44

Post #: 23618025
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Originally posted by josh888 ↑

Currently the world uses a sheet load of energy. Something like 140,000 terrawatt hours. Close to 100 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, lord knows how much coal etc.

Has there been a study or analysis on at what point we can have unlimited energy provided by renewables using a combination of solar/wind/batteries etc.

I know we are far away from unlimited energy but the world is transitioning to it. Was thinking about how Elon Musk committed to power 15% of Adelaide's capacity via batteries at a certain cost. Therefore, if you combine the batteries costs + power generation (wind turbines/solar panels) + energy infrastructure to support these two working we can probably calculate a $cost per kwh to have unlimited energy? No doubt there will be depreciation / maintenance costs to factor but I'm assuming there will be a point where the cost/kwh of energy produced will be cheaper than current energy sources (oil,gas,coal etc) which would make those industries redundant or sunset industries as the transition to unlimited energy accelerates.

Currently doing a research project of energy supply and demend, thinking about the future megatrends of what will likely happen.

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Count on 5% compound growth in demand. Sweating existing assets like Hazelwood is way to minimize capital cost which in the end is the biggest cost in whatever source of energy you care to analyze. Energy should be a small part of a developed economy's household and business budget. Low reliability is much bigger impact, so I would advocate floating retail price to ensure demand supply is in balance at all times.
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