German study: Wind and solar can generate electricity for half the cost of nuclear
The research, commissioned by German think tank Agora Energiewende, compares feed-in tariffs for new nuclear in the UK with FiTs for renewables in Germany, and finds that nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CSS) – a technology not yet available in Europe – are both more expensive than wind and solar as energy strategies for preventing climate change.
Released this week, the study also investigates the costs of “complete power systems” using natural gas power as flexible peak load back-up – something nuclear power plants need to achieve a generation capacity that makes them economically viable, and solar and wind farms need to make up for weather-affected intermittency.
The study concludes that, “even today and under conservative assumptions,” a reliable power system based on solar PV, onshore wind and gas would be around 20 per cent cheaper than a system based on nuclear power and gas – a cost gap that was likely to widen as renewables became even more competitive.
MORE HERE: http://wonkynewsnerd.com/wind-solar-can-generate-electricity-half-cost-nuclear/
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But thank goodness we have fracking gas, and dirty coal to pick up the slack!
The only thing that matters is we quit fossil fuels, and the only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels.
Human use of fossil fuels is still rising. Wind and sun power are not going to magically displace fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are cheap in the short term, but climate changes will destroy this world economy in the longer term.
Living without fossil fuels will require significant changes in the way we live, changes that nobody, myself included, seems able to accomplish.
... and statistically very large areas can have little or no wind.
In the past I saw very large scale HVDC electric grids as a solution to these problems, something like Buckminster Fuller's global electric grid but I abandoned that vision a long time ago as it simply trades fossil-fueled corporate and government corruption and inhumanity for electrically-powered government corruption and inhumanity.
A highly industrialized wind and solar powered world is also a world of humongous environmentally destructive hydroelectric projects and police states protecting energy supplies; the same as nuclear, the same as fossil fuels.
Even a perfectly "clean" fusion powered world is simply not attractive to me. At this point in our cultural evolution humans can fuck up the planet with any energy source we might imagine, "clean" or not.
The only real solution is to teach our children to respect themselves, to respect others, and to respect what is left of the natural environment. Next we must practice birth control to such an extent that the human population is declining.
I suspect my utopia is a live-and-let-live matriarchy of highly educated women and very low child mortality rates.
Educating and empowering women, making every sort of birth control easily available everywhere, and doing everything we can to make sure every child is loved and provided for, these efforts will go a lot further in making this world a better place than any "alternative energy" scheme or improved industrial efficiencies.
Humanity as it currently exists is fully capable of destroying the natural environment we all depend on. As things are proceeding now we will destabilize the environment to such an extent this world civilization collapses. "Alternative energy" schemes like wind and solar are not going to change that.
The problem is especially acute in "developing" nations where recycling methods are primitive.
Lead damages young minds and it has a "half life" of forever. Would you allow your sons or daughters to hack apart dead lead acid cells and dump the lead plates into an open furnace? I wouldn't. Nor would I want to live in a neighborhood where this was being done.
I don't have much experience with other sorts of batteries because they are expensive, or involve even worse toxins.
Nickel-Cadmium... it's come back from China and been sold at Wal-Mart as kids jewelery. 
Iron-Nickel batteries are very solar friendly, long lasting, and hard to kill, but Chinese Nickel refineries are as bad as North American refineries used to be. Same problem with Nickel Metal Hydride cells.
My next experiment will be with Lithium Iron Phosphate cells, just as soon as I acquire some from the waste stream.
Still, off-channel hydroelectric is probably the best way to store solar and wind energy. I like schemes where wastewater is recycled back into fresh water and pumped back uphill into reservoirs whenever the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.
I also think we ought to be experimenting with residential housing that requires very little energy. Cooking would be accomplished by fully renewable fuels (perhaps DME made from ag waste and sewage), homes would be heated and cooled by local means (simple human body heat, geothermal heat, solar), and electricity would be used only for nighttime reading and writing and charging various personal electronics.
Privately owned automobiles would be rare; let's abandon those energy hogs for attractive walkable communities where people would rather stay in the neighborhood than drive to to work, shop in some big box store, or eat in a soulless chain restaurant.
We do have plenty of options but we have to abandon our current automobile culture and consumer society to get there.
The solar and wind energy projects are window dressing to attract "green" political voting.
That's not any kind of improvement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garzweiler_surface_mine