Are Renewables Actually the Cheaper Option? 

Join us on January 20 for a livestream where guest John Poljack will rerun the calculations live with your suggestions for different assumptions: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Kx5hLwHoq0A.html

As an engineer scientist with a background in metrics and measures, I can agree how hard it is to develop compound measures. Every decision is subjective.

It's so satisfying to watch somebody handle this subject who knows precisely what they're talking about. Thanks 😁

Thank you for your excellent work. What a great way of illustrating the data.

The idea of racing cars is absolutely brilliant for making things understandable.

Thank you Rosie, what a great, approachable, look at a VERY complex topic. As you pointed out, much of the subsidy value is not easily teased out. Because of that we will always be in the position of having to educate and persuade. Your videos are a great tool for that. Thanks again.

I think I detect a bias towards CCG generation in both of your studies cited. I do understand why. My own utility from which I am charging my Tesla as I write has such a plant a few miles away here in California. The roughly 60% thermal efficiency of such a plant is compelling, I must admit. But left out of what you present here, is one of the major issues with it fuel provenance. Natural gas leakages in what are rather long pipelines for the one nearest to me. Of course money leaks along with the gas, so incentive is there to control for that. But here in Southern California, not so different from Australia in sunshine availability, we have no real problem with the leakage of that energy source. That control and monetization of the energy source that passes through their facilities is what the energy providers find so lucrative, and which in turn provides the funding for studies like the ones you cite, alas. Maybe adding in some of the other externalities will put a better spin on the long term analysis.

Rosie, thanks for the entertaining and enlightening videos. Some additional context may help. It's usually cheaper to reduce load than to increase supply. LED lights and home insulation come to mind. The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, but the sun does shine when the wind isn't blowing and the wind does blow when the sun isn't shinning. Add to that a Vehicle to Grid (V2G) Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and a generator with renewable fuel. Not all solar needs to be PV. Currently solar thermal is cheaper and quite useful in winter. Not all storage needs to be electrical. With Vacuum Insulated Panels (VIP) thermal storage can be effective. Simple Reflectors can be a cheap way to increase supply. Not in summer sunshine but in winter and possibly during cloudy days. Batteries are also good for power line conditioning (voltage and frequency). Depending on the tariff. Tariffs that pass the cost of peak power to consumers encourage creative solutions. Self-sufficiency is also an issue. Ask Texans after the winter blackout. Solar + battery took off.

Just came back to this video when I showed it to some friends. Rosie, this is great information, and I think this could be a huge opportunity for you and for green energy in general. Team up with Fully Charged and turn this race into a big, annual event/celebration/educational opportunity, with pre race hype, predictions, green energy talks and conferences, etc. Leave the staging and hype to the Everything Electric folks, they enjoy that. You can then concentrate on staying in your serious and professional engineering wheelhouse, analyzing and presenting the economic and technical aspects of the race.

Really nice addition to last video, thank you. As a civil engineer I'm curious of offshore wind in the near future. That Lazard specifies as median $84/MWh, but we are seeing a fast pace technology breakthrough with a few 15MW offshore windmills and capacity factors at 60%, tested now and in production 2024, V236 or Halliade X for example. Will we see lower LCOE for offshore wind and how does it depend on depth and distance from shore? Here in Sweden we have a lot of requests (>300TWh) to build offshore wind in our shallow seas because of rising power demand with for example Hybrit. Doubled power demand can basically be met by lots of wind and solar (with our.70TWh hydro as backup).. or the conservative nuclear dreams.. The right-wing government that won the election did so on a subsidiary of nuclear power and nimby-hate of windpower. I fear that this will cost Sweden a lot.

With renewables you either need considerably more capacity, transmission, storage, or a combination to ensure 24/7/365 availability. That is the complex question especially when the costs are changing so rapidly and these facilities last so long.

In Sweden it is more and more obvious that most newly added consumption is very very flexible. And that gels very well with adding more renewables. Now keeping old generators online forever will not work, but it does afford a very smooth transition.

Erm.You factored in a 40 year lifecycle for Nuclear …… except the new plants being built in Europe are aiming for 60 years….that’s a huge difference.Put that into your calculations and you’ll get a more reasonable answer. Addendums Nuclear base loads reduce the need for fossil fuelled ( gas) power stations.This too should be factored in.

Hi Rosie Hard question to answer, should we look at the cost/amount of energy used to build each power source? What would be the cost comparison to build nuclear vs solar/wind/storage, including mining and making each product and the materials used.

good stuff. One thing that would be good to mix in would be the daily fluctuation in cost. you touched on in it for gas turbine vs combined cycle. But this is the critical thing that drives battery adoption at an individual consumer level. And also makes the economics of grid scale storage (like pumped storage ).

Thanks for the update from your first comparison. Two things. One, and this is a can of worms, is factoring in the health costs associated with burning coal and gas. It is a real cost, even if not direct- but the savings in better health will still be real dollars saved by consumers. Second, and this is probably premature- for nuclear see where, potentially, Thorium molten salt reactors would fall in this race- though it may take a lot more assumptions for that scenario.

In pre Victorian London the middle class were affected by the illness of the poor. The answer, piped potable water and sewers. The original postion foul water pumps and sewage in the streets. Which was the cheaper, throwing shit out of the window or a network of underground pipes? Sometimes the best option is not the cheapest.

I really wish we had better time of use pricing for electricity. This would encourage energy hungry industries to use energy when solar is strongest. And would cause them to move away from areas with low winter solar.

For this calulation I don't think subsidies should be included. Either way everyone ends up paying via taxes or bills, right? Grid connections make sense. Storage costs... Eh we should plan for it, but we should be storing energy for different uses. We need rapid response storage so we can get off peaker plants, and we need slower response storage to provide baseload offset from solar and wind, especially wind so we don't have to keep turning them off when they make too much power, and solar so we can hang on to the vast amounts of excess in the summer forward for winter.

I may have missed it. But, I didn't see any costs factored for land use, construction, and recycling. "Total Lifecycle" includes costs for materials, manufacturing, as well as disposal.

Perhaps this comparison could be made fairer by looking at fuel cost, rather than price.

Thanks for another fact filled video. Sitting in the Brisbane airport right now having spent the last 16 days in your wonderful country. Thanks for including geothermal. Unfortunately it was limited to previous versions of geothermal. Would love to see numbers which include Eavor 3rd generation technology. Also transmission lines using carbon fiber are up to 30% more efficient.

Dr Rosie could you do a video on the costs and benefits of different types of battery storage Lead Acid and other types of batteries for small scale solar and wind turbine ( back garden ) project thanks Dr M

Wind is an incomplete solution which is very very expensive if complemented with necessary backup systemes. Harvesting something very diluted is always a very hardware intesive and costly prceedure. That is why we have cattle instead of moskitos for protein.

I still think there are factors missing, for example constant availability, in my region we had last month completely overhung weather with no wind. so nearly no energy was generated by wind and solar for 14 days. It doesnt matter to me where the energy come from in that case, because if the moment the sun goes down the lights goes out, the country is as bad as north korea.

Sad to see that SMR/MSR tech has been neglected here. But recent polar methane lakes from increasing permafrost melting, has left all these points moot. Short of highly accelerated processing of recently discovered rare earth's in Sweden, along with perfectly placed SMR/MSR tech integrated with solar, wind, tidal, battery tech; the 'collapse curve' is quickly forthcoming. Don't have grandchildren.

You mention subsidies for fossil fuels but that is a furphy because the examples you gave were for mining for export or consumption. But that has nothing to do with comparing the costs of electricity generation. Coal and gas receive zero subsidies and coal also has to pay royalties. In contrast wind and solar receive construction grants, subsidies for all they produce, lucrative PPAs, priority grid access, free backup, free transmission line construction, free stability control. If wind and solar received none of the above, they would be dead in the water.

Would it be possible to add LNG distinctly from pipeline CH4? Here in the UK the gov is pushing hard for new LNG terminals which seems short sighted to me. Surely before LNG will (or at least should) be made redundant by a decarbonised grid, before this expensive LNG infrastructure has paid for itself and before it's fulfilled it's potential operational lifespan? LNG is being pushed and sold as a short term fix to the current crisis. But LNG terminals takes years to get up and running so isn't going to help this crisis at all, I assume.

Thank you for doing what you do with those you do it with.

In most discussions people don't realize that there's a huge amount of storage in the fossil fuel. About a fourth of the energy we use each month is in tankers, and the rest is in tank farms and pipelines. Everyone takes the 18,000 miles of pipelines that are already crisscrossing America as being free to build and operate because they're already in place and their operations koster already factored into our energy bills. All power plants have a cost of being connected to the grid it's unfair to ignore the cost for good connections that are already made. Storage cost for fossil fuels is difficult to calculate because even individual houses have fuel oil tanks and propane tanks were fuel oil is not used. Electricity storage cost rezu take the cost per kilowatt-hour and the number of cycles the storage system is rated rated for and divide. A battery that cost $300 a kilowatt-hour that has a rating of three thousand cycles stores energy for ten cents a kilowatt-hour. I've always wondered why lithium titanate batteries don't get more love because of their 10000 cycles, their storage cost can be two cents a kilowatt-hour.

Brilliant analysis. I would like to see a bit more commentary around the LCOE with regard to the actual lifetime of a plant. E.g. While baseload nuclear and coal have longer life cycles than renewables and those numbers are used to calculate their LCOE's, their capacity factors are now falling rapidly. Surely those old LCOE's are becoming less accurate ? I get that it would be hard to quantify in such a dynamic market but it would interesting to see a couple of examples where a 50% capacity factor was used rather than the standard,higher ones of 80 0r 90%. We are seeing CFP capacity factors dropping to around 50% in Australia already. Surely this makes fossil even more expensive and less practical ?

Thanks for the video - what about the future cost/availability of raw materials for manufacturing the equipment for power generation and transmission? Copper, Steel, Cobalt, Lithium, Carbon Nano, Oil. I've heard some speakers say there isn't enough materials, money or mining capable of making the transition.

Great video - You've mentioned subsidies here, but what about the need to tax/price carbon emissions? Carbon emissions should be taxed at much higher rates than they currently are, according to economists like Stern. A lot of countries decide to subsidise cleaner alternatives rather than tax the emissions. This makes energy overall cheaper of course, which then doesn't encourage efficiency.

Interesting how the Australian report included integration cost, yet does not include this for coal. That would seem to be an invalid comparison. Coal used for any level of peak production is very wasteful and certainly does not achieve its assumed capacity factor or costs. Coal should be baseload only. Good video and presents a good level of showing how complicated Engineering can be, its not a one size fits all. We need more of this to show to others its not a simple choice and to not believe the misleading information that coal provides "stable" power. It does but its also a disadvantage.

One of the problems with fossil fuels is the price can be munipulated by the producer. Once a windmill is up and running the cost of generation is stable. How much does wind cost? When you get your power from fossil fuels you are subject to the whims of the market.

I would question the use of LCOE as a comparative measure for which method of electricity is cheaper in the long run. Looking at the actual energy used to support the complete life cycle of any particular system calculated from the energy produced by that same system may be a better measure. This would be the EROEI or Energy Return on Energy Investment (often just shortened to EROI). This is easier to calculate and would avoid the unsustainable and highly subsidized cost of solar cells which are manufactured with coal-generated electricity by conscripted labor, for example). The detailed analysis by Schernikau et. al. "The Unpopular Truth about Electricity" (2022, and references therein), clearly show that the complete life cycle cost for solar and wind electricity (from mining of raw materials to the environmentally sound disposal/recycling of end-of-life components) is typical about 4 to 5 (i.e., they supply 4 to 5 times as much energy than is required to meet their life-cycle energy costs, real capacity as opposed to name-plate). With grid storage, that drops to 2 to 3 (assuming there’s enough raw materials for such a commitment). It should be noted that the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago had an estimated EROI of about 2, and much of that was supplied by slave labor. To support our modern first world society, we need and estimated EROI of greater than 10 to support all the amenities and services we are used to, but perhaps greater than 15 to actually continue to improve our overall standard of living (e.g., to bring the second and third world societies up to a decent standard). Fossil fuels offers this, with EROI's up to 40 (that's why it's been so difficult to ween ourselves of it). Nuclear (as in the old PWR'S), on the other hand, have an EROI of 70 (while using typically less than 5% of the thermal energy available from the fission reactions). The newer SMR designs which are much more efficient are projected to have EROI's of more than 10 times that (Special call-out to the HALEU fueled Candu Reactors to be tested this year). A case study which supports this thesis was written by Prieto and Hall "Spain's Photovoltaic Revolution - The Energy Return on Investment" 2013). Throughout our history, human society has advanced mostly due to increased density in power generation. The best example of which is the transition to the industrial age that was catalyzed by coal-generated steam with EROI's approaching 10. This made slavery obsolete (as opposed to changes in social values). Going backwards to systems that have EROI's of less than 10 means going backwards in a big way and leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself. We need to seriously look at the long term EROI’s of various energy- generation/distribution systems to chart a prosperous future for mankind.

Are Engineers confused by Economists? Yes. The key to effective process development is attention to an appropriate system of measurement. In 35 years I was never able to use cost as a relevant measure since it doesn't predict the desired outcome. For example, solar plus battery storage is often cited as an effective energy cost solution; however, the reality is quite different when solar plus battery storage is measured for energy availability. It's the availability of energy which allows us to have an industrial civilization. An industrial society needs and EROI of 10 and since solar plus battery storage has an EROI of 5 it may be an effective cost solution but won't sustain our economy. Anytime an Engineer proposes LCOE as an appropriate measure, it's very likely they are confused. Effective process development requires measurement of all physical inputs and outputs of which energy is a key metric.

Respect for Rosie's assessment of Australian conditions, as much as it will be as good to see Canadian Nuclear Engineers give their up to date estimates for their conditions. (Would be ridiculous not to consider the coming changes) I might be the only person on Earth who thinks the most of the money spent on weapons is stolen from the domestic responsibilities of good government. An opportunity cost? Is MAD militaristic financial insanity absolutely necessary? Present management makes financial analysis of costs associated with energy generation and distribution total nonsense. Eg if biomass is considered a real "alternative" to fossil fuels how is this magic feat achieved if the only actual difference is the age of the biomass?.. and so on. The off the scale contempt for human existence is literally breathtaking. ***** A "clear understanding" of e-Pi-i 1-0-infinity Singularity holographic positioning, ie that nodal-vibrational emitter-receiver log-antilog interference is the constituent relative-timing ratio-rates created bio-logical re-evolution QM-TIME Completeness circumstances.., is "absolutely vital" to Analyse the circumstances of this modulation cause-effect mechanism that should include the formation of mass-energy-momentum continuity of humanity and where we live operationally in context. You could say, if you clearly understood the mechanism, that Energy is an aspect of temporal mechanics-Thermodynamics, flash-formed AdS/CFT Quantum-fields of harmonically "textured" spacing, ..a potential difference between nodes of quantization dimensionality.., then the "true nature and value" of elemental e-Pi-i Fusion Function continuous containment of available Energy from mass inflation is a "no-brainer". (The macro markets will be the same problem) ***** So on topic, energy is self-defining e-Pi-i flash fractal distribution potential for "doing work" like Quantum Superspin Modulation Mechanism Lensing bonding in the nodal-vibrational Singularity-point positioning absolute reference-framing of 1-0 probability frequency density-intensity alignment. There aren't any alternatives to being here now. The clean Energy Engineering is the thing, without the anti nuclear FUD. It is easy for all of us to conflate the word nuclear with problems of survival, but fossil fuels are the actual threat. Maybe I've over analysed the issues, but again the shortsighted half-truth of superficial assumptions has condemned generations of people to make self destructive decisions against what is actually sustainable and efficient in maintaining life on Earth. In the meantime, good work Engineer Rosie and supporters. ***** All the Mining in Australia should be Electrified with all the Renewable resources they can lay their hands on. Convert the machinery and equipment, but what battery types and heat storage, like Graphite Bricks etc, is still in development chaos. I've been pro Nuclear since I first heard about it, didn't know it was a propaganda exercise for the Warmongers, but the Copenhagen Atomics, Energy Enterprise is getting closer to the technology and peaceful purpose that the propaganda had promised.., one day. ***** Getting difficult to keep up with the rapid shift to SMR tech.., despite the shillings spent in denial and vacuous state of deliberate ignorance.

A batteri just last 8 hours in Sweden if you are unlucky 5 days without wind. A cold winter day without wind and sun and problem with the river ice. You can just close the grid. It need electricity secund for secund. The car who wins the race is depends on what day it is. Somedays the solar and wind stands still. 😀

Excellent video and easy to follow. Only quibble is you need to re-look at US data. Wind + solar + hydro is now around 20% of total electricity and rising fast. Nuclear is another 20%. I believe you said hydro + nuclear was 10% which is way too low. Other than that, very good analysis.

Constant Capacity Factor is not a realistic assumption given that in a perfect free market solar and wind power can be added to the grid and destroy the capacity factor of geothermal, nuclear, coal and gas.

Several things that MUST be factored into any serious discussion of the various technologies: 1. their impact on human health. Coal and to a lesser degree natural gas are both producers of byproducts that contain known toxins, carcinogens or present some level of hazard to human health. Nuclear not much, other than the fairly low risk of a meltdown or similar large-scale industrial accident. 2. environmental damage. The open pit mines that are often used to produce coal, which is extremely subjective but most reasonable people would agree that they are a blight on the landscape where they exist, even fierce supporters of coal. Nuclear as well has some very negative impacts re: mining of uranium ores, which could be reduced or eliminated by using fast breeder reactors. 3. Decommissioning. There’s also the cost to decommission any given technology, which must be factored into the overall cost. Note that while I’m a big proponent of renewable energies, there’s still a significant environmental cost to them in terms of the mining of materials, industrial manufacturing process and associated wastes (including some CO2 emissions). Fortunately renewables (INCLUDING ANY LARGE SCALE ASSOCIATED BATTERY STORAGE) are also leading the way in terms of a circular economy (capable of being recycled) but their carbon footprint is not zero. This comparison also treats the emission of CO2 as a zero cost to the planet, which it most certainly isn’t. As an externalized cost, it therefore further skews the true cost (to humanity, not the individual consumer) of generating energy by burning coal or natural gas.

One plan you have ignored is 300 - 500 % wind and solar. It's cheaper to do this than to add seasonal storage. You only need overnight storage and maybe a few days storage on the worst days to winter. Especially for solar there is no penalty to over production: no circuit or generator feedback burnout, no extra CO2 no pollution no wasted fuel. The extra capacity can be used for whatever you like: heating, cooling, crypto-mining, hydrogen generation for shipping, steel or concrete industries. By 2030 solar will be cheaper than the cost of transmission so just put it where you need it. That will be especially easy given the new flexible and transparent perovskite panels that are becoming available. If you refactor in these conditions, things will look very different. The fact that solar will perform so well, with wind backing up the overnight needs means that every other power option becomes less desirable. This means that with each successive year, they will sell less and less of their available load making the cost higher and higher. LCOE = Total cost (build, maintenance, input) / Total energy generated and SOLD. If you can't sell the energy its cost hits an asymptote. So every form of energy that is not the solar, wind and battery combination is on the path to financial ruin within the next decade. So government subsidies should be withdrawn as soon as possible and the money given to homeowners and renters to invest in local solar and wind power to prevent the collapse of the grid.

Recently you discussed underwater storage. I am wondering what the state of underwater generation is? It seems like there is a only half-hearted research into what seems like a very reliable potentially large source of energy (especially where there are large lagoons like carlingford lough in ireland, or the straits of gibraltar). What’s stopping us doing underwater windmills?

Thanks Rosie, a really good video.

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🚗 *Einführung in das Thema* - Die Frage nach der besten Energiequelle und eine Einführung in den Vergleich der Kosten verschiedener Energiequellen. 00:28 🏁 *Startaufstellung: Energiequellen im Vergleich* - Vorstellung der sechs Energiequellen: Kohle, Gas, Solar, Wind, Kernkraft und Geothermie. - Bewertung der Installationskosten für 500 MW Kapazität. 02:25 🏁 *Der Rennverlauf: Kapazitätsfaktor und Lebensdauer* - Berücksichtigung des Kapazitätsfaktors und der Lebensdauer für jede Energiequelle. - Auswirkungen auf die Gesamtkosten pro MWh. 03:50 🏁 *Tankstopp: Brennstoffkosten* - Analyse der Brennstoffkosten für Gas, Kohle und Kernkraft. - Einfluss auf die Rennergebnisse. 04:46 🏁 *Wartung und Betrieb: Betriebskosten* - Untersuchung der Betriebs- und Wartungskosten für verschiedene Energiequellen. - Einfluss auf das Endergebnis des Rennens. 05:39 🏁 *Das Endergebnis und Faktoren außer Acht gelassen* - Bekanntgabe des Siegers und Vergleich der Gesamtkosten. - Diskussion über Faktoren wie Subventionen, Energiespeicherung und Netzanbindung, die in den Kostenvergleich nicht einbezogen wurden.

I may have missed it , but did the Nuclear costs include the long term decommission and storage costs, and who pays?

Subsidies is an interesting topic, but one have to remember that they can be "reversed" as well; in Sweden for example, whenever nuclear started making "too much" money it was popular to increase taxes on it. Over time a lot of plants shut down, making electricity a bit more expensive, increasing profits and that means more money for the state (good thing since other companies are shutting down decreasing tax revenue).

Worth mentioning that nuclear's high capacity factor is really more of a bug than a feature. Nuclear has low refuelling cost but cripplingly high capital cost, and hence tends to be given preferential access to serving loads so it doesn't have to be turned down. It certainly can be turned down, but nobody does it because that would be economic suicide. When cheaper wind and solar are allowed to eat half of nuclear's prepaid lunch, nuclear gets a lot more expensive per delivered kWh, and the solution fades into economic irrelevance.

Rosie barnes? Are you related to Rosalind Stephens? This is Dylan. I was watching a video and he promoted your video and I was really surprised. I'd love to do youtube videos but I always thought of it as more of a pipe dream than something practical. I'd love to hear about your experiences. I've always thought I could do the research without too much trouble and the speaking isn't an issue. I could probably even get good at the camera work. But I'm much less certain about the animations etc.

The $6 billion seems rather a high cost for the nuclear plant The recently completed this year Finnish plant coat $12 billion USD, and generates 1600 MW, which works out to $3.75 billion for 500 MW. The 5380 MWe nuclear complex in the United Arab Emirate cost $24.4 billion USD, which works out to $2.3 billion USD for 500 MW. The new Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia does work out to $6 billion USD, but it does not seem accurate to base your estimate on one badly managed project.

France has been in mega drought and the rivers that provide cooling have too low to be used. Thermal generators don't like hot weather have an increased break downs during heatwaves, caused by burning fossil fuels, the environmental cost of burning fossil fuels needs to be factored in. Record floods, Record Fires, rising sea levels from Antartica ice melting can't be ignored.

Decommissioning cost? Especially nuclear. And of course, what about nuclear waste storage costs; storage facility maintenence costs; potential nuclear disaster costs? Are such figures even available?

Thank you for this really interesting video!

Thanks Rosie, shared your video with a Ukraine channel. You have done a great job with a fun way to look at the facts. @Engineering with Rosie 😎

Great video! I recommend spending some time on Dunkelflaute (German word for when the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow). Basically reliability is the most expensive part of the grid. I’m an electrical engineer with 25 years experience, and the one thing that gets drummed in to our heads is reliability. That’s because industry, hospitals, education and homes (hot/cold days) need power, and that’s why the cost of wholesale power can be between $50-$15,000 per MWh. First World Grids have been designed to have 1 day of down time in ten years so 99.9997% reliability. Also another hard one that is a bit tricky to get is stability. So the inertial power from a standard generator is much different to solar and wind, solar and wind will disconnect during a network event much more when it sees large faults/frequency dips causing a cascade outage, where a synchronous generator will drive through the network event, and not jump off. There are components like a asynchronous condenser that can be added to solar and wind projects to help maintain frequency during a network event BUT this has extra costs. Summary: less time the power is out the better, and less time wholesale price is at $15,000 the cheaper we the consumer pays for electricity.

Would like to hear more about the France nuclear situation, I hadn't known about the 60% capacity factor atm

I saw grid mentioned and thought that you where going to talk about expanding of the national grid for the electric future with central generation. The national grid is horrendously expensive to expand and 5times bigger from central generation is a disaster. Dispersed generation and EV big batteries is the only economic option because it unloads the grid. Cold latitudes solutions are not needed for warm latitudes. As the climate warms less heat and more energy for Renewables. Solve the right problem and give people the hope we deserve. Battery technology is rapidly developing

No mention of hydro? Its a pretty big portion of the energy sector here in Canada.

If you have the means to do energy calculations, please do a video on induction heat generation vs. plain resistance and why are not induction stoves dominating the market. Also, why not use induction to heat water and circulate it around a home for fast efficient heating? Can microwave oven designs be used to heat a building?

Thanks for another interesting video, Rosie! 😊

I think this is a great overview for new generation. My interest goes beyond the scope of this video. With countries setting goals for 2030 and 2035 what would be the cost when figured to replace existing generation before the end of its lifetime? The build costs, permitting, and transmission are already paid for and replacement generation capacity would have to add in those LCOE costs if before that end of lifetime.

A comment on nuclear for the 92 reactors in the US. Their average life today is 40 years with 88 reactors approved with life extensions for another 20 years. 15 reactors have already applied for another 20 year life extension which will take their operation into the 2050s. More are expected to apply as their current license comes closer to expiring. According to the IAEA, a single 20 year life extension would take the LCOE of nuclear to $30-$40 per megawatt-hour, which is comparable to the LCOE for wind and solar.

The viability and cost comparisons of RE and fossil fuels is highly dependent on latitude - a proxy for weather extremes. RE is not viable in very cold climates due to very high intermittence and huge storage requirements. Igloolik, in Arctic Canada can't be run without a substantial amount of fossil fuels. Period. In contrast, a house in Guadalajara, Mexico needs no heating system and maybe 2 days of storage and a minimal 1 or 2kW solar array to manage very well. See the book The Renewable Energy Transition; Realities for Canada and the World. Probably in your library.

I think nuclear plants can last much longer than 40 years. How would that change the numbers?

I'd like to know what your thoughts are on the rare earth and other mined resource requirements are for each energy generation type, like cement, steel, copper, neodymium etc and how these may impact on costs, availability and national security as most of the heavy rare earths are available from only a very few countries. Thanks for a great update.

I'd like to see a cost for Oil v EV usage which includes the many Wars for Oil. Eg: Iraq. And the on going cost to Taxpayers eg: Terrorism, Refugees, Constant Military Patrols to keep said Oil Flowing. And Finally the cost of the Pollution to our Health, Health Systems and destruction of Environment.

Would be interresting why these lcoe dont linie up with reality. Germany has the highest share of renewables installed per capital, resulting in the highest electricity costs in the world ... one known problem are the unexpected high integration costs. They estimate decades for upgrading their grid. Without viable options for storage they started to build new gas and reopen coal plants. Which have much higher lcoe when used intermittend.

Good. I've seen some good critiques of LCOE and then there is Wright's Law. Cost of both wind and solar are going down, down, down. Fuel costs remain ZERO and environmental and health costs (not included in your analysis) are also Zero. Argument over. Energy storage is complicated by the impact of storage on energy loss on transmission and distribution -- estimated at 15% of generated energy. Millisecond response to variations on the grid will cut loss approximately in half. Incidentally, we talk about variability and its costs a lot. Therefore, to be fair, we half to include grid efficiency affected by storage and both health and environment. Please don't present your analysis as even-handed unless you qualify your results emphatically with these costs.

How about factoring in the cost of the effect on climate change?

What about the cost of land?

I might have missed it but has the time value of money been included in these calculations? If so then what was the discount rate?

In your previous video about the same subject, I asked you why the denominator of your LCOE - which is a physical quantity - is discounted as if it were a monetary one? Does it make any sense to you?

You briefly show capacity factor for wind as 38% which is not true. In Australia the average CP for onshore wind is about 32%. You also have the CP for a combined cycle gas generator as 50% but once again this is load following mode and they can operate around 90% in baseload mode. The 23% for solar is also incorrect, solar farms in QLD might attain that but in southern states it is more like 18%. The great majority of solar is rooftop and in The southern states the CP is 15% average.

Garbage incinerators should be the cheapest, followed by renewables.

Does Nuclear include the actuarial cost equivalents, loss of economic activity, and cleanup due to disasters?

i'm workin on a offshore wind turbine phd protocol, this is just what i needed, thank you.

Our Xcel Energy must be more than annoyed to be paying for expensive nuclear energy only to sell it at off-peak rates overnight since both stopping and re-starting nukes takes multiple days. They run at 100% power all the time, whether or not the power is needed. Several people have complained that wind and solar will never be baseload power. That's true. The utilities in the midwest of the US have too much baseload power. What they want is dispatchable power-- which natural gas and a few hydro sites offer. Don't promote baseload power to a utility that wants energy with zero fuel cost, zero waste disposal cost with next to zero maintenance and is able to run dispatchable plants to make up the difference.

Of course you ignored the massive costs of building out new transmission lines across the country for wind and solar, and the removal of prime farmland from production, especially for solar, (and the eco-costs of the extensive threats of wind-farms to bird-life), and the decommissioning costs for wind and solar equipment and their landfill destinies, plus the widespread overestimation of lifespan of solarcells & wind turbines and widespread underestimation (by as much as a factor of 2 or more) of the lifespans of nuclear plants. Oh, and then there the obvious question: How much does solar and/or wind energy cost per megawatt during a still night?

How about the real costs such as pollution, (health cost etc) CO2, climate, ...

Cost (as in "cheaper") has nothing to do with it. It's all about a cleaner, more survivable environment for humans.

Reliability and affordability are the main factors to consider. Renewables are intermittent, which means you have to factor in the cost of storage and backup plants, chiefly natural gas, making them prohibitively expensive. In the real world, you are left with a choice between fossil fuels and nuclear. Fossil fuels are wonderful, but they are finite and are becoming more expensive and also emit CO2, contributing to climate change, which threatens our food supply and coastlines. That leaves you with nuclear power as the last and only feasible option. Sorry folks,, that's just the way it is.

Maybe good to do update every year And maybe good to include low heat geothermal (the one of no hotspots) and keep an eye on the super deep (it’s on the going non location dependant) Maybe good to include safety.. (though I’m nosy sure about which or where info use)

Thank you so much, I can use this to push my green energy agenda!

The term 'renewables' is oxymoronic - the resources are finite and the products are replaceable - not renewable. Any product that has to be decommissioned and re-produced has an energy and ecological footprint.

Wonderful series of videos. What is woefully lacking in the costing are 2 major components that are frequently disregarded. One is decommissioning costs at the end of life, including disposal/reusing components and waste. The other is all of the external costs, including but not limited to, CO2 emissions and its effects on climate events, pollution and its environmental and health effects, waste management (e.g. coal ash and nuclear waste), etc. In the world goal of getting to a circular economy in the energy sector these costs need to be dealt with up front, so that the engineers design in ease of decommissioning and minimizing external costs..

The effect of V2G vehicle to grid can have a massive effect on grid stability. One report stated EV charging at off hours evens out demand and makes base load power generation more effective. Things are changing.

One thing that is continually overlooked in the Energy field, is the fact that renewables are: A. Relatively new, and so very much a developing technology. B. They can also be decentralized. This second point is very important in my opinion. To illustrate what that can mean I would like to point to a company in the Netherlands, (IBIS power) that combines both solar and wind in a rooftop module that would work for many buildings. Combine those with some form of battery in the basement and you have very reliable electricity for the building. I'm sure there will be other innovations too. Anyway thanks for a very interesting video.

Is the cost of the emitted CO2 included in the fuel cost? If so, what cost is assumed? Are the cost for disposal of high radioactive waste included in the cost for nuclear power? If so, what cost are assumed?

I do geotechnical surveys for offshore wind and one thing I'd like to say is that at the end of a wind turbine's life cycle, you can just replace the turbine without having the cost of surveying the site, building the foundations, or running the cables, so this will reduce the price of replacing the assets. Also, what if Max Verstappen was driving wind? It would be a clear win for wind then 🙃

Great video.. What about pollution clean up costs of operation, costs of nuclear waste storage, nuclear decommission costs etc (and who pays for it)?

From what I have read there is a big problem with nuclear in that many countries build different plants every time so that every one of them is a huge learning experience which is then lost when they don't build the next one exactly the same. I read that they also get built mostly on-site and the geology etc of the sites make each one slightly different even when they're the same basic technology. It seems to me that there's scope for remedying some of this.

Great analysis, as far as it goes, as your presentation is very base load oriented. Your discussion about transmission costs gets closer to the issue. Their are two additional race cars I would add to your track: Conservation and decentralized generation. We need better building codes to make structure's more energy efficient. Where appropriate roof top solar will make a big contribution.

Another fantastic video from Rosie! Double bonus points for mentioning the need for storage with nuclear, a factor frequently no mentioned. Other factors that need to be considered with nuclear fission plants are: - insurance, as it is now (post Fukushima) almost impossible to obtain purely commercial insurance for a nuclear fission power plant, no matter the size or technology. Even prior to Fukushima it was typical for governments to underwrite some of the insurance risks. -high cost of transmission lines as typically nuclear plants are located far from major population centres. - decommissioning costs and long term storage of waste. In Australia governments always seem keen to follow their colonial forebears by trying build a storage site on first nations land (recognised or otherwise). - location, it would be very difficult to even find any locations suitable for a nuclear fission plant in Australia as they need to be built near a significant reliable source of water, which essentially means the ocean. None of the locations that were proposed by the SECV (Victoria Australia) when the last formal report was provided to parliament in the 1980's would be suitable anymore. Even at the time they would have been highly contested.

Using the same financing cost of 7.7% for all tech seems flawed. Securing FF finance is getting harder - both due to lenders withdrawing from such financing for PR reasons and because even those who will lend now have to build in assumptions that that climate legislation will curtail running hours or strand FF assets in their working lifetime.

I am surprised places like Indonesia doesn't use more Geothermal. I know Kenya is getting involved in Geothermal as their RE back up.

Thank you for your effort, this is such a complex and emotive subject. As an engineer working in electrical generation for 40 years I would like to suggest another factor for your car race. Reliability of supply is surely a major issue, cities can't come to a standstill because its nightime and there has been no wind for a week!. Keeping electricity on the bars was always our main concern a factor that is often overlooked in recent times.

Fantastic videobas usual. Very balanced approach. Keep it up.

Love to see NuScales SMR's competing in this race especially after they get to production scale.

Many Thanks Rosie, excellent as ever. I may have missed it but is there any costing for ‘the polluter paying’ relating particularly to lifetime CO2 load of different generators? On assumption that the goal is to keep to 1.5C increase in global temperature v pre industrialisation. Regards Richard