Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

@2ap

That question about how much solar they have installed again has apples and oranges baked into it. Home solar has subsidies baked into it in the form of tax credits and easy loans, but it also gets credited the RETAIL price of the power it sends back to the grid when it should be getting the WHOLESALE price. Rooftop solar is freeloading on the grid and making it less stable since they aren’t paying their fair share for the grid. Look at CA, where they are going to start levying a yearly fee per kW of installed rooftop solar for the privilege of being connected to the grid.

The cost of power from solar and wind is not less than natural gas. You are not counting the capital cost and the fact that solar and wind are not available all the time. If solar and wind were less expensive, they wouldn’t need subsidies. Companies including utilities are in business to make money, that means making products that people want at the lowest cost and selling for the highest price that will maximize profits. Companies that do not try to reduce costs are not in business very long.

Don’t know if that made your head explode, but it’s just common sense backed up with hard data. But as someone once said, “Common sense is not so common.”

Since you believe that solar and wind is cheaper than natural gas, please tell us how much solar and wind you have installed at your house - kW, the installed cost, and how much it saved you.

@1neh

Solar and wind only cost less than natural gas when you don’t include backup power or adjust for their low capacity factors. The fact remains that you have to build double the capacity of wind and solar to ‘guarantee’ a comparable capacity to any thermal power plant. Every MW of wind power is backed up by roughly a MW of fast response combined cycle natural gas plants. Batteries you say! I’ll believe it when I see it. They haven’t been deployed at any significant level and certainly not at economic costs. When you take into account the fact you have to overbuild intermittent power sources and back them up with something else, it’s pretty easy to see they’re not actually cheaper.

And then to make matters worse, our RTO systems in the US pay all power sources the same, regardless of how reliable they may be. When the wind blows and the sun shines, intermittent generation undercuts thermal power plants with their low variable costs and oodles of subsidies. But when the wind isn’t there and it’s a cloudy day, they don’t get penalized for not being there. And hence our grid gets less and less reliable, with less and less dispatchable capacity year after year. Buckle up. I just bought a whole home generator because it’s going to get way worse before it gets better.

If you want clean power it’s all about nuclear. Maybe the new SMRs that are finally gaining traction. Solar and wind are laughably bad generation sources, and the only reason you don’t know this is because their proponents are able to consistently compare apples to oranges with the public none the wiser.

@1tdr+1gZAsBpi

The cost of electricity by solar and wind power is lower than natural gas. Just look at the statistics published by the US and EU governments.

@1tdr+1gZAsBpi The 1980s called, they'd like their outdated opinions back please...

This is a layoff site, not a news wire.

Awesome! Due to the high cost of power from solar, Europe will be even less competitive with the United States. Now, if we can only get India and China to do the same.