I won't address the cost, but an important point to remember is for many countries energy security is national security, food security is national security.
It is important for them that they can't be held hostage to fossil fuel supplies.
It's been a big issue for western european countries during the ukraine war.
Russia did not opt to stop supplying them with gas. They cut themselves off at America's prompting.
The Germans couldn't be bothered to find out what parties were truly responsible for the blowing up of the NordStream pipelines, pipelines that the companies involved in were sanctioned by the US.
Yeah that's what Trump doesn't get when he gets angry about wind power. The Netherlands is a rich country it doesn't need handouts from American oil companies pumping up a few million barrels of oil. What it needs is electricity for the next 100 years and that's why the Dutch part of the North Sea is being paved over with turbines.
A number of headlines have come out recently touting China's progress on electrification, and predicting that they will soon (if they don't already) dominate the solar/battery/EV markets.
The part often glossed over is that while the U.S. and Russia both have large oil reserves and domestic production capabilities, China has virtually nothing in comparison. Their production is about 1/4 that of the U.S. despite having 4x the population, meaning that per capita, they have < 1/16th the oil available. Electrification is a matter of national security for them, because any major global geopolitical conflict (say, the escalation of the Russia/Ukraine war, or a Russia/US conflict, or more turmoil in the Middle East) will cut off the flow of oil imports and grind China's already-weakened economy to a halt.
Follow the incentives and you can predict the outcomes.
> The part often glossed over is that while the U.S. and Russia both have large oil reserves and domestic production capabilities, China has virtually nothing in comparison.
China is 13th of the list with an estimated 25.1 billion barrels of untapped oil reserves.
The U.S. is 9th in the list with 55 billion barrels. Venezuela tops the list with and estimated 303 billion barrels.
China also has a long term strategic policy on resource management. Long term strategic planning is deep within Chinese cultural psyche.
Wondering around certain regions of China you’ll see many capped wells, and when you ask a Chinese official about them, one may be lucky to get the real answer as to why they are capped and not being used.
The answer given was “why use ours now? We use everyone else’s until it’s all gone, and then we use ours”.
China is playing the long game. It’s a slow patient 2000 year old culture that had an odd blip 100 years ago and is now moving back to business as usual. Underestimate China at your peril.
China has the 2nd largest coal reserve globally. They also produce 61% of their electricity from Coal-fired power plants.
Say what you will about contributing to increasing global greenhouse gas emissions but their energy security is not as dire as you paint it. They're still diversifying it though through hydro/nuclear/wind/solar sources.
Merit order is a hidden subsidy. Other means of producing electricity that have a theoretically lower marginal cost will need to curb their production.
I'm generally a proponent of renewables, but I think it's also important to take seriously quantitative arguments against them. But without good sources, it's impossible to work out who's right.
What is financially viable independent of politics? What doesn't have subsidies? Did the petroleum industry pay for the millions that were lead poisoned? Do they pay for the environmental damage caused by climate change? Those are also subsidies.
Is that still true if the costs of oil/gas stop being socialized? Basically the people pay for oil cleanups, for air polution, etc, the cost is still there it's just not currently born by the oil companies. Also, how do the costs stack up if you drop all oil subsidies?
It's saying that society pays a price for fossil fuel emissions, in terms of damage to our climate and our health. Millions of people die every year from fossil fuel emissions. If we attach a price to that death and destruction, and apply that as a cost towards fossil fuels, it makes the financial subsidies of wind and solar insignificant.
LCOE doesn't make much sense when you think about it. It doesn't include storage necessary for intermittent energy sources, nor grid costs. It also doesn't account for how much variation there is in renewable potential geographically - 1 solar panel produces far less electricity in Poland than it would produce in Spain.
One simple issue with LCOE estimates is that their revenues are not all equal. For example, rooftop residential solar seems very expensive (no economies of scale) but since residential electricity rates are high and you don't have to pay (as much) for transmission, they can be very financially viable, at least recently. Solar PV + storage looks more expensive, but that's because it shifts the supply to more valuable times (i.e. cuts the duck curve). Gas is more valuable than it seems because it is reliable on rainy days.
In my estimation the fact that wind and solar are often anticorrelated makes onshore wind basically financially viable without subsidies in some places (I think $27/MWh is basically viable).
* are there scenarios where a new wind power installation would be profitable without subsidies today?
* are there examples of window power installations becoming profitable without subsidies already?
* are there examples of existing wind power installations demonstrating a positive ROI against subsidies that were committed?
* hypothetically, how would wind power, as an abstract industry, compare against alternatives if subsidies had never been never committed?
* hypothetically, would wind power installations that are now viable without direct subsidies have been possible without industry subsidies in the past?
etc
These all have different answers/analyses and your question is ambiguous across them. And that's probably why you're not finding the answers you want. Not because those answers are not available, but just because your question is too vague to have one conclusive answer in the first place.
Mainly interested if any private business would start construction of a new wind power project in the US without any government subsidies using today's technology.
Readit News
It is important for them that they can't be held hostage to fossil fuel supplies.
It's been a big issue for western european countries during the ukraine war.
In 2018, Germany (and France) were warned about their dependence and deals with Russia on oil and gas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu57D9YcIk0
The Germans couldn't be bothered to find out what parties were truly responsible for the blowing up of the NordStream pipelines, pipelines that the companies involved in were sanctioned by the US.
The part often glossed over is that while the U.S. and Russia both have large oil reserves and domestic production capabilities, China has virtually nothing in comparison. Their production is about 1/4 that of the U.S. despite having 4x the population, meaning that per capita, they have < 1/16th the oil available. Electrification is a matter of national security for them, because any major global geopolitical conflict (say, the escalation of the Russia/Ukraine war, or a Russia/US conflict, or more turmoil in the Middle East) will cut off the flow of oil imports and grind China's already-weakened economy to a halt.
Follow the incentives and you can predict the outcomes.
China is 13th of the list with an estimated 25.1 billion barrels of untapped oil reserves.
The U.S. is 9th in the list with 55 billion barrels. Venezuela tops the list with and estimated 303 billion barrels.
China also has a long term strategic policy on resource management. Long term strategic planning is deep within Chinese cultural psyche.
Wondering around certain regions of China you’ll see many capped wells, and when you ask a Chinese official about them, one may be lucky to get the real answer as to why they are capped and not being used.
The answer given was “why use ours now? We use everyone else’s until it’s all gone, and then we use ours”.
China is playing the long game. It’s a slow patient 2000 year old culture that had an odd blip 100 years ago and is now moving back to business as usual. Underestimate China at your peril.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_...
Say what you will about contributing to increasing global greenhouse gas emissions but their energy security is not as dire as you paint it. They're still diversifying it though through hydro/nuclear/wind/solar sources.
The North Sea is ideal for wind power -- steady winds and high electricity prices. Other places may vary.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-the-era-of-negative-s...
For instance I recently saw this exchange: https://x.com/i/bookmarks?post_id=1881090543956222293
I'm generally a proponent of renewables, but I think it's also important to take seriously quantitative arguments against them. But without good sources, it's impossible to work out who's right.
This is useful to suggest solar will win in the end: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/levelized-cost-of-energy?...
But much less clear how well wind, especially offshore, can compete.
This is also decent but doesn't get much into cost: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/can-solar-and-wind...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
"Also -- solar has certainly a big role to play, but wind power is largely a scam. No one should be building wind turbines. " https://x.com/fchollet/status/1881059960928543117
One simple issue with LCOE estimates is that their revenues are not all equal. For example, rooftop residential solar seems very expensive (no economies of scale) but since residential electricity rates are high and you don't have to pay (as much) for transmission, they can be very financially viable, at least recently. Solar PV + storage looks more expensive, but that's because it shifts the supply to more valuable times (i.e. cuts the duck curve). Gas is more valuable than it seems because it is reliable on rainy days.
In my estimation the fact that wind and solar are often anticorrelated makes onshore wind basically financially viable without subsidies in some places (I think $27/MWh is basically viable).
Do you mean:
* are there scenarios where a new wind power installation would be profitable without subsidies today?
* are there examples of window power installations becoming profitable without subsidies already?
* are there examples of existing wind power installations demonstrating a positive ROI against subsidies that were committed?
* hypothetically, how would wind power, as an abstract industry, compare against alternatives if subsidies had never been never committed?
* hypothetically, would wind power installations that are now viable without direct subsidies have been possible without industry subsidies in the past?
etc
These all have different answers/analyses and your question is ambiguous across them. And that's probably why you're not finding the answers you want. Not because those answers are not available, but just because your question is too vague to have one conclusive answer in the first place.