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I'm done here, you're clearly not reading what I've said if you genuinely believe I've said capex never matters.
I said - Renewables are only economically viable because the cost of power is paid on the last generator, which is natural gas.
You said - This is not true, renewables are economically viable at much lower prices than fossil fuels because their next unit cost is effectively zero
And yet I show you sources where increased capex costs are making renewables economically unviable because the capex costs have increased so much due to inflation and the wholesale price they were offered at auction is now not enough to justify the CAPEX to build it.
You're going in circles because you won't admit that the horse comes before the cart. You can't get to zero extra unit cost if you don't build the fucking thing.
@bernieecclestoned @hellothere
Renewables are viable because they produce electricity cheaper than combustion, and because combustion will be restricted and banned in various conditions as time goes on.
We used to think peak oil would be more of a problem, but previous oil is the compelling problem.
@hellothere](https://sh.itjust.works/u/hellothere)
For the UK, onshore is not viable due to planning and solar is less so during winter when energy demand is highest.
It's a small island surrounded by sea, offshore wind is the only game in town, other than nuclear, and currently offshore is not viable unless the govt ups the contracted MW hour rates...
@bernieecclestoned
Planning needs changing.
(I like wind turbines on hills. Pretty.)
Thing about solar is you keep putting up more panels, and by and by you halve as much power in the winter as you used to in the summer.
Solve the society for the prevention of rural electricity, soon.
I don't think panels are the answer, solar leaves that create fresh water as well as pv and thermal giving >70% efficiency sounds great
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/246833/bio-inspired-solar-leaf-design-with-increased/
The storage requirements are going to be huge, we'd need something like this for every town, goes inside the hill, no nimbyism.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/in-depth/uk-firm-promises-high-density-pumped-hydro-revolution/
@bernieecclestoned @hellothere
* putting up ond more panel, or one more turbine on land is cheaper than burny increments, but the Rance barrage or a 1.5GWe fission plant is a big lump.
@bernieecclestoned @hellothere
I'm quite sure I said nothing of the sort.
This seems to be about semi-fixed costs, which should favour some* renewables, and externalities - which definitely favour renewables, unless the collapse of civilisation and several gigadeaths is ignored as a cost.
IIRC the reason for Siemens pulling out of an offshore project was that the price was artificially fixed low, with a penalty.
I explicitly covered this in my 3rd comment - quoted below.
@hellothere
Definitely for baseload generators. Perhaps slightly different for peaking generators etc. Average for the sort of units you propose to sell, I guess.
This is a fair point - peaking is more complex, especially if we're considering batteries where their generation cost is going to include probabilistic opportunity costs - ie how confident are they that the price won't fall further and/or if this is the peak of the spot and best time to sell.
But yes, over the decades you'd be looking to run to utility for, you're looking at blended averages to calculate the return.
And yet you're still wrong.... The prices are part of the contract.
The increased capex and opex is making it economically unviable
https://www.rigzone.com/news/wire/14gw_wind_project_in_uk_cancelled_as_costs_soared-20-jul-2023-173391-article/
My good fellow, if you believe that cap and floor contracts somehow disproves my point, then you really do need to go back and re-read what I've been saying all along, not just what you think I've been saying.
For the final, final time:
Again:
I will only reply if your next comment actually brings something new to the conversation.
You're talking about existing infrastructure, I'm talking about net new capex, so we're talking at cross purposes and it's dull
Cya