The Oil Drum

197 comments on Peak Oil Media: Buffett on Net Energy and Peak Oil and Lovelock on Putting Your Head Between Your Legs and Kissing Your...

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Nick on March 7, 2008 - 12:43pm

"By the time we could get the infrastructure built for significant coal use, and the exporting countries had done so, or we built new mines if resources are available, we could be deep into a nuclear build and save the CO2."

New infrastructure in the US, such as rail, is a 1-3 year thing, not a 10 year thing. I think Australia has a port capacity bottleneck - I'm not sure on a timeline there. Anyone have info?

My source on recent historical costs was FPL, though I don't have a link. The 2007 data is nameplate (for comparison purposes) for both the US and the world - overall stats on new capacity and dollars spent (which may exaggerate costs, from a PPP standpoint) - I'll see if I can find a link.

Don't forget the scarcity pricing for wind turbines: manufacturers have a 2 year backlog.

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DaveMart on March 7, 2008 - 1:18pm

Here is a link to the Pickens 4GW $10bn project:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23wind.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&...

There is one heck of a price difference here, $2.50 watt against your figure of $1.80.
That's about a 65% price increase against your original $1.50

I am not saying your figures are like this, but I am pretty suspicious of costings in the renewables industry, they often seem to have taken off subsidies first, and in general got up to all sorts of games, just so long as they get their subsidies - the market basically stopped when Denmark stopped them.

I am particularly interested in your statement that the increase in costs is mainly due to supply shortages in the nacelles rather than rising material costs - have you got any breakdowns on this?

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Nick on March 7, 2008 - 2:14pm

I'll see what I can find on Pickens, and nacelle costs.

" I am pretty suspicious of costings in the renewables industry, they often seem to have taken off subsidies first"

I'd note that we're talking about capital costs, and subsidies typically don't apply to capital costs.

"the market basically stopped when Denmark stopped them."

That doesn't tell us much. Developers may have been waiting for resumption, or gone somewhere else where things were slightly better. We should note that most sources of energy would halt without subsidies, explicit or implicit, such as guaranteed utility reimbursement for investment (a key factor in general), CO2 externalities, or Price-Anderson.