Coal news and updates

The first point is the very basic fact that new wind power and/or solar power plants are typically cheaper than new coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants — even without any governmental support for solar or wind.

 

Not only are they typically cheaper — they’re much cheaper in many cases.

The estimates above are supposedly “unsubsidized,” but if you include social externalities as societal subsidies (I do), the estimated costs of fossil fuels and nuclear energy are hugely subsidized in those charts.

 

A study led by the former head of the Harvard Medical School found that coal cost the US $500 billion per year in extra health and environmental costs — approximately 9¢/kWh ($90/MWh) to 27¢/kWh ($270/MWh) more than the price we pay directly. To fool yourself into thinking these are not real costs is to assume that cancer, heart disease, asthma, and early death are not real.

 

The air, water, and climate effects of natural gas are not pretty either. On the nuclear front, the decommissioning and insurance costs of nuclear power — unaccounted for above — would also put nuclear off the chart.

 

On the renewable front, costs to overcome intermittency of renewable energy sources (basically, presuming a very high penetration of renewables on the grid) are also not included. Once that is a significant issue (at which point solar and wind will be even cheaper), low-cost demand response solutions, greater grid integration, and storage will be key solutions to integrating these lower-cost renewable sources to a high degree.

 

Back to Lazard’s assumptions, note that the IGCC and coal cost estimates do not include the costs of transportation and storage.

 

Given these assumptions unrealistically favoring fossil fuels and nuclear energy, including subsidies for solar and wind is actually an even better way to look at costs of these electricity options. However, if you included historical subsidies as well — coal, natural gas, and nuclear have received a ton (well, many, many tons of subsidies) — dirty energy options would again look worse. In any case, here’s Lazard’s cost comparisons with current subsidies:

Source: Cleantechnica