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Solar — it's not just a clean power source producing zero emissions and almost no local water impact, it's also now one of the best choices on the basis of how much energy you get back for your investment. And with climate change impacts rising, solar's further potential to take some of the edge off the harm that's coming down the pipe makes speeding its adoption a clear no-brainer.
In 2016, according a trends analysis based on this report by the Royal Society of London, the energy return on energy investment (EROEI) for oil appears to have fallen below a ratio of 15 to 1 globally. In places like the United States, where extraction efforts increasingly rely on unconventional techniques like fracking, that EROEI has fallen to 10 or 11 to 1 or lower.
Meanwhile, according to a new study by the Imperial College of London, solar energy's return on investment ratio as of 2015 was 14 to 1 and rising. What this means is that a global energy return on investment inflection point between oil and solar was likely reached at some time during the present year.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:02PM
Those numbers must be based on subsidies. Wake me up when storage is included.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:16PM
> Those numbers must be based on subsidies. Wake me up when storage is included.
Incorrect.
Even without subsidizes utility-scale solar is cheaper than even the cheapest form of natural gas.
Here is a chart that compares unsubsidized lower and upper bounds of recent projects [vox-cdn.com] using a metric of “levelized cost of energy” (LCOE). The LCOE of a particular source is calculated by dividing the total lifetime costs of building and operating the source by the total lifetime energy output of the source. Total costs divided by total energy = LCOE.
Here is a chart indicating how US federal tax subsidizes shift those numbers. [vox-cdn.com]
The charts come from a report by the Lazard investment bank. [lazard.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @04:39PM
Thanks for the link. But if we have more solar or wind plants, we'll also need more gas peaker plants for when renewables are idle. Those peakers look pricey. I'll agree that there is social good associated with using renewables, but there is also a cost that seems to be ignored.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:33AM
Some morons modded that as "troll"??? WTF? That dude(ette) actually posted real stuff. Where is solar at night? Where is wind during calm days??
The problem is our energy usage is based on DEMAND requirements, not on SUPPLY availability. And that's how it will continue no matter how many "smart meters" you put in. Maybe you'll have able to charge your future electric car when it's day, but you want your food cooked for you every day, when you are hungry, not when the wind is blowing! And you certainly can't have steel mill or bakeries work at the whims of clouds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24 2016, @03:58PM
Each one of those cars is a battery ready to run your microwave when you need it.
Furthermore the GP claimed that gas plants were 'expensive' when in fact they are just a bit more expensive than solar. So build a few of those for smoothing out the peaks and valleys from solar and wind you are good to go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:48PM
These numbers are based on wishful thinking about solar panels durability and omitting some of the energy used during production and probably completely omitting energy used during transporting them. Real EROEI is probably somewhere between 3 and 6. Better than in 70s when it was below 1 or food and nature preserves to fuel plants that have around 1.2 but still far from oil. Also note that coal has EROEI around 50 and uranium probably several hundred.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday December 23 2016, @05:08PM
And does that "Real EROI" for oil factor in all the externalized costs of oil? The total cost of all the wars fought in the Middle East since WWI? And the value of the subsidies and tax breaks given to oil companies? Not to mention the total cost of oil spill cleanups paid by the government? And the total lost income and and oil-related health expenses of all the people impacted by various oil spills?
I mean just because none of those costs are included in the market price of oil doesn't mean they aren't directly attributable to its use. And heck, we haven't even discussed the expected cost of adapting to global warming yet - that's liable to start getting extremely expensive by the end of the century.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday December 23 2016, @08:23PM
But, how would doing that result in oil industry execs getting raises?
(Score: 1) by garrulus on Friday December 23 2016, @04:16PM
Yep batteries are the critical thing. And cheap good converters. But I assume its full chain else comparisons make no sense.
Btw this royal society, are they the same guys that couldn't even calculate the "smart meter" yield?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @07:50PM
Those numbers must be based on subsidies.
The oil industry's annual subsidies of tens of billions of dollars from the US government are a fact of life and should be included in these calculations. That's what you meant, right?