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Gas Plants Will Get Crushed by Wind, Solar by 2035, Study Says
By 2035, it will be more expensive to run 90% of gas plants being proposed in the U.S. than it will be to build new wind and solar farms equipped with storage systems, according to the report Monday from the Rocky Mountain Institute. It will happen so quickly that gas plants now on the drawing boards will become uneconomical before their owners finish paying for them, the study said.
The authors of the study say they analyzed the costs of construction, fuel and anticipated operations for 68 gigawatts of gas plants proposed across the U.S. They compared those costs to building a combination of solar farms, wind plants and battery systems that, together with conservation efforts, could supply the same amount of electricity and keep the grid stable.
As gas plants lose their edge in power markets, the economics of pipelines will suffer, too, RMI said in a separate study Monday. Even lines now in the planning stages could soon be out of the money, the report found.
Hopefully our electrical distribution grid will still work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 12 2019, @10:33AM (1 child)
Wind farms have this buffer space too though one can use it for something productive as you noted. As to the nuclear plant buffer space, one could use it for something productive as well. That they don't is a failure of that particular regulatory system.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @11:06AM
Our regulatory system is a political manifestation of the general public's fears - not just the exclusion zones, nor the 10 mile radius evacuation warning klaxons, but also the red tape surrounding construction, and especially the shutdowns recently planned in Germany.
Funny that those fears don't manifest as funding for overkill inspections, demands for real transparency in operations, or system upgrades - cynics might think that the fears are being stoked and exploited by interests which benefit from the competition to nuclear power, such as fossil fuels... Significantly, coal mining operations in Germany continue to obliterate small towns in their path, while the stability of German and French geology and the precision of their operation has resulted in zero events of a Three Mile Island level of concern.
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