Bet 76
By the year 2015 solar electricity will be as cheap or cheaper than that produced by fossil fuels.
Prediction 76
Duration 18 years (02002-02020)
Predictor
Robert A. Freling
Challenger
TBA
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There is no question that the world will either make an orderly transition to the use of renewable energy resources in the next few decades, or that essentially all economies will collapse. The question is how much time is there, how realistic is such a transition (that is, is it just pie-in-the-sky to think that the world could?), and how long must it be coddled through financial and other incentives before it takes off on its own market momentum. Analysts from Shell International Petroleum, for example, suggested as early as 1996 that the transition to renewables must start now, and reach at least 20% saturation in the energy market by 2020, in order to accomplish over 50% saturation by 2050. Furthermore, they concluded that this WILL happen, as they predicted that renewables will be fully market-competitive by then. The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a "Blueprint" for a transition of the U.S. to 20% renewable energy by 2020 which shows hundreds of billions of dollars of profit to the U.S. economy within that same period resulting from the early steps to the transition. A more narrow question is whether the solar-based technologies will keep up with this economically beneficial pace. While all renewable energy technologies, save geothermal, result directly or indirectly from solar energy, some of the ones that rely specifically on radiant solar energy (e.g. photovoltaic electric energy production, solar thermal electric energy production, solar energy water heating for commercial and industrial uses, and biomass production for energy and fuels) are presently still at higher costs than for wind-energy (which is, in some regions, economically competitive today) and geothermal energy. (I am not including hydropower, also a solar-driven technology, but one with limited future potential because of the ecological imperatives of protecting remaining rivers.) On the other hand, the direct use of solar energy for residential and commercial needs, such as solar heating of homes and buildings by passive architectural techniques, solar heating of domestic water and for swimming pools, and the use of daylight for commercial and retail businesses and schools, are fully cost-competitive today, yet they have not gained widespread market approval (although daylighting appears to be emerging into mainstream architecture as a result of the well-documented economic and health benefits of daylit buildings). For these, however, it is just a matter of time and further legislated "leveling of the playing field". So, to narrow this long bet, how will the production of electricity by direct radiant solar energy technologies (PV, thermal and biomass) fare in the future market? We expect with confidence that these will be fully market-competitive by 2020. This will result from a number of factors: • First, the world demand for oil will exceed supply probably during the present decade, leading to a dramatic and permanent increase in the price of oil and forever altering the economics of energy production, dragging other fossil energy resource costs along. • Second, the demand of the industrial nations for natural gas will also exceed supply and system capacity, leading to a dramatic and permanent increase in the cost of gas. • Third, international pressures on Climate Change will lead to an increase in costs for coal through carbon taxes and much more stringent emission reduction requirements. • Fourth, the value-added benefits from the use of the solar energy resources (e.g. reducing building cooling system size, first costs and operation and maintenance costs through shading and roof ventilation by PV systems, taking advantage of the economic benefits of "distributed generation" and increased system and building reliability by integrating on-site energy resources into the operation of the grid, and enhancing rural income by diversifying and stabilizing farm earnings with energy crops, just to give three examples) will become recognized market-stimuli. • And fifth, the costs of these direct solar energy technologies will continue to decline, while, as suggested above, costs for all competing energy systems will continue to increase. Accordingly, we are willing to make a long-bet that the solar energy technologies that make use of the solar energy directly will all have found their way into market acceptability and full competitiveness by 2020.
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By the year 2015 solar electricity will be as cheap or cheaper than that produced by fossil fuels.
For this to happen or solar energy gets cheaper or fossil fuel gets more expensive. Besides all the confict going on with the middle east, there is still enough fossil fuel energy in the oceans to still leave the price lower that solar energy.
Costs in energy are also reflected in how you can store this energy. Solar energy has to be instantly converted to eletricity to be economically viable. While fossil fuels are privilidged with huge natural underground storage, solar energy needs expensive bateries to be built.
"While fossil fuels are privilidged with huge natural underground storage, solar energy needs expensive bateries to be built."
True, to an extent but,
1. There are large scale energy storage systems such as the 'two mountain lake' hydro-electric system.
2. After a quick glance through the bet text it does not seem to include 'storage cost'. So if it's cheaper by day (when produced) and not available by night (when it isn't) then I think it would satisfy the terms of the bet.
Isn't more energy used during the day, than during the night? If so then until solar energy generation makes up more than this difference storage will not be a significant concern.
There is no question that the world will either make an orderly transition to the use of renewable energy resources in the next few decades, or that essentially all economies will collapse.
I think this is very much in question. A few decades ago in college I read some study of impending exhaustion of the world’s oil supply in 20 years, written sometime before the start of WW II. Since world-wide consumption is at an all-time high, why then are oil prices so low?
Between now and 2015 solar will no doubt get cheaper than it is today, but progress on solar has been fairly slow, no Moore’s Law running there. The efficiency of combustion technologies has advanced faster than PV efficiency over the past couple of decades.
There are also the considerable costs associated with developing and implementing renewables. Ironically, the developed world will eventually, though not by 2015, make this clean, high tech transition while people in the developing world are still cooking on dried animal dung, but that is a different bet.
"Isn't more energy used during the day, than during the night? If so then until solar energy generation makes up more than this difference storage will not be a significant concern."
The need for energy storage has nothing to due with solar energy projects incapacity of storing energy at night. Humans majorly consume energy from 6am to 8pm. During that period there is a strong variation in consumption due to industries, shower time, sunset time, cooking etc. Energy storage is essencial to provide constant energy during these peeks at all times. Solar energy cant provide constant secure energy. A aluminum company cannot stop its production because its cloudy. Its smelters (aluminum melters) will dry up, and they will lose millions and millions of dollars.
Oil, Water, Uranium, Plutonium, Coal ect.. are physical things, that we know the mass. We can calculate how much energy we have. We can secure and store it, in a cheap way, for later usage. Solar energy tecnology is far far away from industrial use. I guess like in the 2150.
Trip a little further... Solar energy's industrial praticability will start existing when humans start launching into space huge satelite blankets that will orbit the earth or other planets. These satelites will later beam down energy to earth using powerfullasers.
As the bet is worded variation in energy requirement during the day is pretty much irrelevant.
If solar energy could provide a variable amount between 10% (overcast) and 100% of electricity very cheaply during the day while the rest has to be made up for by conventional power plants at expensive rates...
- Solar electricity would still be 'cheap'[1]
- Conventional power would still be 'expensive'
If production of solar electricity was done by large plants connected to the national grid then local variations in sunlight would be evened out over the country.
However I agree that the timeframe of the bet is too short, you'd need at least a 30 year lead in to get sufficient, solar chimneys / concentrators / whatever designed and built.
[1] On an average basis.
The bet, as stated, does not specify that solar electricity will be as cheap or cheaper than fossil-fuel electricity *everywhere*, in all markets. Therefore, you could argue that it's already true -- in orbit, for example, solar electricity is already cheaper, and commonly used for that very reason.
This is a pretty extreme interpretation of the bet (though not unfair, as the bet is stated), but the point is that the bet does not require that solar electricity be as cheap or cheaper than fossil-fuel electricity in all ways, at all times, or in all places.
Unfortunately, the bet also does not specify how these costs are to be tabulated. I assume they mean in terms of immediate and perceived cost to end users, the kind of thing one would see on a bill from the power company.
That's an intensely misleading way to calculate the costs, although unfortunately typical. However, it does seem inevitable that solar electric will be cheaper than fossil-fuel electric, per se (noting that neither fission nor fusion power counts as fossil-fuel derived).
The timeframe for solar becoming competitive probably depends most on the pace of research and on industry and market resistance. 2015 is not an implausible date, but it's certainly not guaranteed, either.
But without knowing how costs are to be tabulated, etc, there's no way to sensibly come out with a definitive prediction.
I run my house and computer consulting business on solar power, with fossil fuel generator backup. I'd never need the backup if not for the demands of the business, which has several employees using power no matter the weather. We are in a rural area. Here, it is the power company that enforces the building codes, in effect. If we had had to meet all the codes and then pay their install fees, there would have been a substantial upfront cost. Solar power also has a substantial upfront cost, about equal in this case, or about $25,000 for our two systems. However, going solar meant needing no building permits, *legal* wells or drainfields, which saves maybe $5000 a year in property taxes, for starters. (Yes, we have water and plumbing, they are just not permitted as such.) The county assesor doesn't know how to handle us! When all things are considered, solar power can be cheap now! At least it is here. Right now, it is competing with other uses of purified silicon, which is one reason the prices are high. Another is that it is simply a bit of seriously non-trivial engineering to build a panel that will withstand weather for decades, and back that up with a guarantee. Interestingly, all the major producers of solar panels are owned by the major fossil fuel companies. They know their time is running out!
No serious argument can be made that Hubbert's peak will be hit much more than 5 to 10 years from now, and that fossil fuel prices will then rise dramatically. This is like projecting how many people will enter the workforce in the next five years. They have all been born already, no guessing at all need be done. Even if huge unexpected new oil reserves are discovered (unlikely on this increasingly well explored little rock) they will not be online in time to prevent serious shortages before the decade passes.
Over here in the UK you can sell back to the Power Grid any surplus electricity you may have.
I think the 'upfront' costs of 'local' solar electricity generation are still fairly high, but this is likely to change soon.
Flexible plastic solar power generating covers are on the way that you can just roll out over the roof (for instance). Efficiency isn't at the same level as 'traditional' solar panels - but fabrication should be dirt cheap.
cheap=viable. what makes you think the sun can be a viable energy source? It has not been proven with anything on a grand scale.
"what makes you think the sun can be a viable energy source? It has not been proven with anything on a grand scale."
...apart from approximately all life on Earth---an aggregate metabolism that dwarfs human energy activity.
...and apart from the sun-manufactured hydrocarbons that ARE the fossil fuel economy.
Mid-ocean hydrothermal vent life is non-solar. So is nuclear power. Short list.
"Mid-ocean hydrothermal vent life is non-solar. So is nuclear power. Short list."
Actually both of those originate from 'sun power' but one of them wasn't our sun. ;-)
However, for the purposes of this bet I think it is pretty clear that 'solar power' refers to power extracted from action of sunlight directly on some artificial apparatus.
I'd just like to note that while the bet does seem to concern the fairly direct conversion of absorbed solar radiation to useful electrical current, there are different types of "solar power" that fit this kind of definition.
I do agree, for example, that it's not fair to call wind power "solar power" because a lot of wind energy is generated by solar heating. But there are basically three kinds of fairly likely "solar power" that I'd consider fair game:
(1) Surface photovoltaic
This is the standard "solar panel" form, in which sunshine is converted directly to DC current. It can mean anything from a commercial power station to panels installed on a house's roof to small collectors on the back of a laptop computer.
There's a variety of new and old technologies in this area, including thin-film plastics and transparent windows that absorb non-visible wavelengths and convert them to current.
(2) Surface solar thermal
These are systems that use sunlight at the Earth's surface to produce heat, which is then used to generate electricity.
Personally, I think solar thermal makes more sense for most homeowners than photovoltaic. Very basic hollow metallic roof panels, black in color, can be used to heat a working fluid that powers a simple turbine generator in the house's attic. All of the mechanical and electrical complexity is in one place and located *inside* the house where it's easily accessible (and maintained).
Such systems have been tested for years but not yet marketed. They tend to be cheaper to purchase, install, and maintain than currently available photovoltaics, with very good power efficiency. Added to the cost of home construction, they could pay for themselves in five to ten years, which is much less than the typical (US) home mortgage.
This does assume that the homeowner can sell excess power back to the grid, which is often but not always realistic in the US. Without this condition, it takes somewhat longer for the system to pay for itself. Still, many highly beneficial and cost-effective technologies that are widely available now are rarely used in US home construction, due to buyer and contractor ignorance, inertia, etc. Good ideas don't always catch on.
(3) Space solar
This covers systems in which solar radiation is converted to power in space and then beamed to the Earth's surface. I'm lumping solar thermal and photovoltaic together, here, because there doesn't seem to be sufficient justification to consider them separately.
Space solar generation would be a great idea, but, personally, I don't see it happening before such time as it won't be needed (one way or another). The initial costs would be high, even for power companies, and public and regulatory resistance would also be high. Besides, there's little incentive in the corporate mentality for taking large risks all at once.
Realistically, space solar power wouldn't have to be as dangerous as people generally think. A rectenna (the antenna on the ground that would receive beamed microwave energy from the power satellite) three kilometers on a side could absorb almost a gigawatt with a beam radiation of only 10 milliwatts per square centimeter (but feel free to check my math). That's the US limit for industrial exposure to microwaves, and it would produce less environmental damage and disruption, locally or at a distance, than, say, a coal-fired power plant. A square rectenna 3 km on a side sounds big, but the rectenna would not be terribly complicated, and the facility on the ground would cost much less than a typical power plant of the same size.
Still, space solar would have its problems, and I don't think we're likely to see it on a large scale.
From the trends I'm aware of, surface photovoltaic is what we're most likely to see, although, again, I think solar thermal is currently more appropriate for new home construction.
I think (2) and (3) still count as "power extracted from action of sunlight directly on some artificial apparatus", while wind power doesn't (as the climate of the Earth is not an 'artificial apparatus').
I meant that all three of these types would, for me, qualify for the bet in question. I agree that wind power's connection to solar power, per se, is too tenuous for the purpose of the bet.
FWIW wind power is now at about $0.10/Kwh and dropping. Natural gas plants are at $0.05/Kwh and rising. Wind is competitive with traditional nuclear (although not with cheap pebble bed nuclear), much cheaper if disposal and risk is taken into account.
I've noticed that these kinds of figures vary a lot depending on where you find them. According to a CNN article last year, the DOE placed wind power at just under $.05/Kwh (production cost) and $.06 - $.08/Kwh for consumers.
A lot of farmers in the northwestern US get paid 2-3 cents per Kwh to let power companies put turbines (windmills) in their fields, and that's apparently quite profitable for the farmers. Meanwhile, the prediction was that wind power would drop to 2.5 cents per Kwh by 2010 (production costs).
A different AP article last year said that across a 10-year period (which is a shorter timespan than utility companies generally consider), wind power was cheaper than all other sources except soft coal, if you included maintenance and clean-up. And if the government required more clean-up for coal, wind would be out in front.
Which is kind of a side comment to solar power, but worth considering. Wind power can be unpredictable, as can solar, which suggests that -- barring massive investments in power-storage (which need not be exotic in form; raising a big column of water stores power, too) -- neither will every fully supplant on-demand power generation.
Personally . . . I'm actually hoping that Farnsworth Fusor-style power generation gets serious funding and comes through within the next twenty years. That would mean clean, cheap boron fusion, which would probably push everything else off the map. I'd expect to see that before hydrogen fusion, myself.
Cheaper how/where? On the margin? On average? In New Mexico? In Seatle? At the point of collection (ie wholesale)? At the point of use (ie retail)?
Ok, technically, this bet deals only with power that is turned into electricity, but that is the high end market of solar. Where the real gains are made I think is in passive solar. My mother was recently planning an addition to her house. She was looking into straw bail construction, which is cheap, sturdy, and rf 35. She was thinking about adding a greenhouse to the back. She wouldn't have turned it into electricity, but she would have turned it into power. The other part of the power equation that people often overlook is reducing the consumption, a watt saved is a watt earned, so to speak.
For clarification, I'd also like to know what that tower they are planning to build in Australia would be cosidered. It's supposed to be a kilometer high convection system, which I think might be solar's answer to the centralized power plant.
I think solar will get cheaper when the government subsidizes it enough so it can reach critical mass in the market place. If you wanted to be a stickler, with all the studies on powerlines, smoke from coal plants, etc. and their affect on health, you could argue that the cost of conventional power is much higher than we think, although to be fair, I don't have any idea what sort of chemicals get released into enviroment by solar cell manufacturing.
In a free market, the price of electricity will be the same regardless of which type of energy is used to produce it. If it were more expensive to produce using fuel X than fuel Y, then producers would all switch to using fuel Y. As I read economics 101, the cost of producing electricity at the margin should be the same using either fuel.
A more reasonable bet, in my opinion, would be that by 2020 such-and-such percent of electricity will come from solar. Or, alternatively, you could make a bet on the absolute amount of electricity that will come from solar.
I think that the point of the bet is that solar power is going to become more economical relative to fossil fuels in the next twenty years. However, my reading of economics 101 is that this is going to be observable as a change in relative quantities rather than as a change in relative prices.
Prices aren't always going to be the same.
To take a relevant example you can obtain 'solar roofing' tiles & coverings. These will cost (to simplify) 'some large lump sum' and provide some electricity for a number of years.
The cost of electricity from these systems depends on how many years you are spliting it over & what the climate is like. If that cost is _more_ than that coming in through the national grid, the householder is still going to be using the expensive electricity because he's already paid for it. If that cost is _less_ than that coming in through the grid he's still likely to pay for electricity from outside because he's likely to need more electricty than the solar system can provide.
Has to happen... renewable, non-polluting energy sources must happen and soon. Add geo-thermal and wind to the list of course.
Maybe we will tire of killing and being killed over oil. Hope so...
I mean, suppose the cost is zero, reach and grab. Is there enough to cover all energy needs?
I would think the potential output from one Dyson Sphere would provide for the needs of even the most proflicate single inhabited world. ;-)
Recent published analyses (1,2) indicate the following current costs per million BTU of energy:
nuclear: $0.50
coal: $0.85
crude oil: $4.50
natural gas $4.90
gasoline $14.60 (1)
installed
400W solar
electric
power plant $203.00 (2)
Even assuming that higher wattages will give increased efficiency and lower per million BTU power cost, the curves for these relationships as shown in (2) don't even get you below triple-digit US dollar costs per million BTU.
The bet would be sounder if the term "electricity" were stricken from it, or even better, "renewable" substituted for "solar" as well.
Capture and concentration of solar heat is much more efficient, as it directly replaces burning of expensive energy with free solar power used as it is needed. (2)
Even schemes using ways to store daytime heat for use at night are much almost as cheap as the cheapest fossil fuels are NOW per million BTU, and much cheaper than every other type of conventional energy usable to heat water and homes.
(2)
Great Britain expects soon to generate a billion watts of electrical power by various wind-driven generators. Many of these are or will be on-site wind power plants located in remote areas where it's cheaper to have a generator working on-site than to run high-tension wires many miles from a central generator, then provide step-down power transformers to power local electrical grids.
Solar electricity is great where I live, because Denver is a mile above sea level, and sunlight is just stronger here than elsewhere in the US. However, Denver is exceptional.
The bet would have much better chance of coming true if it included all renewable energy sources and was broadened to include solar heat capture as well as solar electricity.
(1) Lewis E. Lehrman. "Energetic America," the Weekly
Standard, September 29, 2003. pp 25-29.
(2) "Cost-Effective Solar Energy in Virginia",
http://www.mme.state.va.us/de/chap7c.html
Payback period for household installation of solar power panels / tiles is currently what, well over 50 years?
I wonder how much of that is inherent and how much is simply due to lack of economies of scale. It would be interesting to see what the costs would be like if _everybody_ was getting it instead of a small environmentally concerned minority.
In the UK it's possible to get up to 50% grant on the initial installation cost of solar power systems - as part of the effort to meet carbon emission reduction targets.
Paul, you said:
"Payback period for household installation of solar power panels / tiles is currently what, well over 50 years?"
Easily - but even that optimistically assumes that the solar cells will last 50 years before needing to be replaced.
Currently, estimates of the cost of photovoltaic power use an estimated useful lifespan of 20-30 years for PV solar cell arrays.
Going back to my comparison earlier in this string, if the Virginia Power 400W array works for 20 years, its cost per million BTU is still going to be US$10, over twice that of natural gas, and about what it would cost to run a gasoline power plant for the same application (including the purchase cost of a 400W gasoline-powered alternator).
Economies of scale aren't going to help much, because to arrive at those economies, the world is going to have to buy a whole lot of vastly over-priced PV generating capacity to bring demand up to a point where plants that make PV solar panels can make them less expensively.
You'd almost have to have a World War II scenario where PV power was produced in mass quantities irrespective of its cost, with someone like Harry Truman riding the manufacturers' backs to keep profiteering down to a minimum (which was one of his jobs during World War II before he was tapped to run as FDR's vice president).
Reducing the payback period for PV solar power would require a dramatic drop in the cost of making PV solar arrays - which would now only come about by exporting the work to a developing nation which wouldn't mind the pollution that a cost-cutting solar panel plant would create - and here, we're talking severe poisons and carcinogens like arsenic, strong inorganic acids and chlorinated hydrocarbons.
Crapping up the environment in Indonesia or Malaysia so that we could have inexpensive PV solar arrays in the States and Europe doesn't strike me as either a morally or politically defensible choice.
I STILL think that Prediction 76 might be viable if the word "electricity" were dropped from its language. We know that we can capture and store solar heat - which we then can use to replace electrical and other power we might use otherwise to heat things - much more cheaply and efficiently than we can make electricity with PV panels.
Finally, I don't think that Prediction 76 should be considered "won" if government or other organizations must subsidize purchase of PV arrays before the electricity they produce becomes cheaper than fossil fuels - a subsidy like that doesn't change the relative efficiency of solar versus fossil-fueled electricity, it just gets government involved in paying for less-efficient electricity, and society as a whole still has to pay that cost.
Who knows - by 2015, we may see an inexpensive system where water is electrolyzed in PV panels and the resulting hydrogen used to power a fuel cell, which would make power and water, which would be electrolyzed....
The pieces for a system such as that all exist now; it's just a matter of making them all cheap enough that they could replace power made by your local electric utility. Maybe if fuel cell technology becomes popular in cars and trucks, it'll get cheap enough.
"I would think the potential output from one Dyson Sphere would provide for the needs of even the most proflicate single inhabited world. ;-) "
Giving "props" to fellow longbets.org participant Freeman Dyson, his spheres have one potential drawback which is on-topic to this discussion - payback times.
How long before the energy captured by a partial Dyson Sphere exceeds the energy expended in processing matter from planetary bodies, comets, and asteroids into parts of the shell?
Just wondering who's gonna finance this project... sounds like a job for the World Bank :-)
It does seem inevitable. There are at least half a dozen successful technologies in the pre-production stage which are significantly better than glass-and-silicon photoelectrics.
STI just announce the other day that they had a cheap, easily produced new photoelectric technology that was robust and would cost one-twentieth what current photoelectrics cost. Now, I've seen too many apparently revolutionary products never materialize in the market to get too excited, but that would be more than plenty of an improvement in cost to bring about some major changes.
"STI just announce the other day that they had a cheap, easily produced new photoelectric technology that was robust and would cost one-twentieth what current photoelectrics cost."
Wow. Using the models I've been consulting for my posts, that would put PV's installed cost down there with nuclear-generated electric power, currently the least expensive sort of electrical power short of hydroelectricity.
If that technology can be brought to market in a reasonably short time and tested out as promised, I'd be willing to say that the bet was won.
For your information, there is a proposal to build a commercial scale solar tower in Australia within the next five years.
Enviromission plan to build a Solar Tower 1 km high (thats 0.62 miles for you imperial unit recalcitrants) utilising a 80 km2 greenhouse (20,000 acres) to heat the air to rise in the tower and generate power - 20 MW or enough for 200,000 homes. Also refer this Time article.
Enviromission have described the competitiveness of their project in their FAQ, quoted below:
Will power from Solar Towers be competitive?
The selling price of Solar Tower renewable energy will be based on the average peak pool electricity price paid to generators plus an additional renewable energy credit incentive paid by retailers.
Further value is expected to be added to the internal rate of return through the emerging synthetic carbon trading instrument, where a premium is paid for a tradeable unit that represents a carbon abatement value - this form of trading will off-set carbon producing activity of companies needing to balance their carbon ledgers.
Is the use of carbon credits or other rebates for renewable energy allowed in terms of solar energy being "cheaper"?
If you take into account the government's subsidies, solar power is almost the same price as the mainstream power, during peak hours, even now!
In the United Kingdom in June 2007 it already is cheaper
It cost £595.00 for 2 pannels with a all the fittings
my gas bill is £750.00 for the same house
I now have it on order
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