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posted by martyb on Saturday March 20 2021, @07:16PM   Printer-friendly

Over-valued fossil fuel assets creating trillion-dollar bubble about to burst:

A major new report has warned that conventional energy assets including coal, gas, nuclear and hydro power plants have been consistently and "severely" over-valued, creating a massive bubble that could exceed $US1 trillion by 2030.

The report is the latest from Rethinx, an independent think-tank that was co-founded by Stanford University futurist Tony Seba, who is regarded as one of few global analysts to correctly forecast the plunging cost of solar over the last decade.

According to the new report, co-authored by Rethinx research fellow Adam Dorr, analysts and the broader market are still getting energy valuation badly wrong, not just on the falling costs of solar, wind and batteries, or "SWB," but on the true value, or levelised cost of energy, of conventional energy assets.

"Since 2010, conventional LCOE[*] analyses have consistently overestimated future cash flows from coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power assets by ignoring the impacts of SWB disruption and assuming a high and constant capacity factor," the report says.

Where the analysts are going wrong, according to Seba and co, is in their assumptions that conventional energy plants will be able to successfully sell the same quantity of electricity each year from today through to 2040 and beyond.

[...] This assumption, says the report, has been false for at least 10 years. Rather, the productivity of conventional power plants will continue to decrease as competitive pressure from near-zero marginal cost solar PV, onshore wind, and battery storage continue to grow exponentially worldwide.

"Mainstream LCOE analyses thus artificially understate the cost of electricity of prospective coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power plants based on false assumptions about their potential to continue selling a fixed and high percentage of their electricity output in the decades ahead," the report says.

[...] "In doing so, they have inflated the value of those cash flows and reported far lower LCOE than is actually justified ... and helped create a bubble in conventional energy assets worldwide that could exceed $1 trillion by 2030."

[*] LCOE: Levelized Cost Of Energy.


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  • (Score: 0, Touché) by khallow on Saturday March 20 2021, @08:23PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 20 2021, @08:23PM (#1126829) Journal

    Elon Musk didn't get to be the richest man in the world on the back of a massive bubble.

    Three bubbles (dotcom, electric vehicles, and new space).

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday March 20 2021, @09:25PM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 20 2021, @09:25PM (#1126857) Journal

    Yeeees, those are bubbles just waiting to burst.
    You just wait, any moment now the world will realize how wrong they were and will revert at burning coal.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday March 20 2021, @10:13PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 20 2021, @10:13PM (#1126871) Journal

      Yeeees, those are bubbles just waiting to burst.

      Dotcom already burst in 2000-2001. As to the other two, can you really claim that the businesses, which most of Elon Musk's estimated wealth are bassed on, are valued appropriately? Is Tesla really worth seven times as much as General Motors? SpaceX doesn't seem that overvalued, but we'll see if it's worth its $6 billion valuation.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 21 2021, @09:42AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 21 2021, @09:42AM (#1127029)

        Are you saying the invisible magic pricing wand in the sky isn't factoring in all the information you just blew out your ass?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 21 2021, @06:20PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 21 2021, @06:20PM (#1127189) Journal

          Are you saying the invisible magic pricing wand in the sky isn't factoring in all the information you just blew out your ass?

          Sure, why not? It's just also pricing in what people are willing to pay for Musk businesses at the time he had them.