US Electricity Markets Aren't Designed to Handle 100% Clean Energy

Re:US Electricity Markets Aren't Designed to Handle 100% Cle... by ThomPete on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @12:43PM (#20336848)

Nuclear is expensive in large parts because of the crazy rules and regulations around it. With nuclear you get the true cost + cost of bureaucracy

If we started actually calculating wind and solars true cost (ex. backup power by coal, oil, nuclear) then it too would be extremely expensive.

If we added the cost of decommissioning which isn't added to solar and wind but to nuclear then that would increase the price even more.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:US Electricity Markets Aren't Designed to Handle 100% Cle... by bilbo0s on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @01:04PM (#20337084)

Wind, in particular, has a great deal of bureaucracy around it. Environmental issues. Construction codes. Land use issues. Land ownership issues. Air rights. And more. Today, investors have to work through all these in order to put up a wind farm. The reason they still do it is because as an entry into the energy markets it is an incredibly cheap vehicle. (Comparatively speaking.) The technology is just not that complicated. Even compared to fossil fuels, wind is just a dead simple tech. The costs when you don't count regulation reflect that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:US Electricity Markets Aren't Designed to Handle 100% Cle... by lumberjack on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @01:07PM (#20337119)

Cost of bureaucracy is just abating the risks, so it is 100% a real cost.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:US Electricity Markets Aren't Designed to Handle 100% Cle... by ThomPete on Tuesday July 02, 2019 @05:09PM (#20339428)

Compared to wind and solar it certainly is.

[ Parent | on HN ]