I see people talk about this from time to time on NSG, so I thought it would be a good idea to start a dedicated thread for it (partly because I think people are getting certain things wrong)
Anyway, my highly biased (but sourced where appropriate) OP will start with a quick overview of five power sources: Solar, wind, nuclear, natural gas, and coal, as well as pros, cons, and other relevant info that doesn't fall under those two umbrellas. (All power costs come from this source with a preference for American costs). Others can be discussed of course, as I can't control the thread and I wouldn't want to, plus tings like batteries, fusion, and thorium I just don't have enough data on
Solar: works by collecting energy from the sun and turning it into electricity
Cost (2019): $48.8 per MW/h
Cost Trend: -88% over ten years
Pros:
- Cheap and getting cheaper
- Deployable in areas where others aren't (rooftops, smaller fields of marginal land, over parking lots, etc)
- Low Capex and Opex (covered by cheap)
- Certain crops pair well with solar panels (source)
- Doesn't consume physical fuel, so it'll never run out until the sun turns into a red giant
- Pollution free
Cons:
- Doesn't pair well with every crops
- Low energy density (though only relevant in areas where space is tight)
- Less productive at higher latitudes for obvious reasons
- Only works when the sun is out
- Doesn't work as well when clouds block the sun
Other facts
- The ones used on satellites and the like are designed with efficiency above all else and are thus far to expensive to be economically viable on earth
Wind: produces energy by using wind to turn a large turbine connected to a generator
Cost (2019): $42.8 per MW/h (onshore) $117.9 per MW/h (offshore)
Cost trend: −71% over ten years (onshore) -38% over ten years (offshore)
Pros
- Cheap (Onshore only)
- uses surprisingly little space for the area it covers (in a farmer's field with a wind turbine, for example, they can use 95% of the land around the wind turbine (source)
- Helps rural communities economically (see source for area they use)
- Relies exclusively on current natural processes
- Pollution free
Cons
- The wind must be blowing
- Kills birds (roughly 140k to 328k yearly (source, though this is far below the number for, say, cats, which amount to about 3.7 billion yearly (Source))
- Best suited to wide open spaces
Other info:
- Best built in the Midwest (onshore) where winds are strongest (source)
- Does not cause cancer, whatever Trump may claim
Nuclear: heats water through nuclear reactions and uses the resultant steam to drive generators
Cost (2018): $90.1 per MW/h
Cost trend: -23% over 9 years
Pros
- Extremely low Opex
- Fuel is cheap
- High energy density
- Does not rely on time of day or weather
- Clean
Cons
- Sky high Capex (and regulation isn't the cause according to nuclear plant builders (Source))
- Expensive as a result (power companies are going to want to recoup their investment after all)
- Takes a very long time to build
- Seems unable to be built anywhere near on time or on budget currently (source)
Other info
- Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island are best considered anomalies
- Decommissioning is being ignored here
- Due to the high capex, are generally run at or near 100% at all times to get the most bang for their buck
Natural gas: burns natural gas to boil water and drive turbines
Cost (2019): $40.8 per MW/h (conventional) 40.2 per MW/h (advanced)
Cost trend: -48% (conventional) -49% (advanced)
Pros
- Cheap
- Can ramp up and down easily, making them popular as peaker plants
- Far cleaner than coal
- Reasonable energy density
Cons
- Still pollutes
- Occasionally has massive leaks (Aliso Canyon, for example)
- Takes time to start up, so peakers are kept running as low as they can go until needed, though this can be offset with batteries (source)
- The methods of extraction leave something to be desired (fracking, for example, causing flammable water)
Other info
- Natural gas is increasingly used in place of coking coal in steel making (Source, older source). My understanding is that this is because it's easier to control for impurities.
Coal: Burning coal to boil water to push through a steam turbine
Cost (2015): $95.1 per MW/h
Cost trend: -5% over 5 years
Pros
-Any? Anyone? I can't think of any
Cons
- Highly polluting
- No longer really economically viable, mainly kept afloat for political reasons
- Does not ramp up or down at all well
- Mining is extremely environmentally destructive
- More expensive than Nuclear
Other info
- Coking coal will likely never completely go away, but its need will probably be severely reduced as time goes on
- [John Oliver voice]Eat Shit, Bob[/John Oliver voice]
As to my own opinion, I really believe that, as batteries continue to develop (for electric cars, phones, power backups (a la tesla's powerwall), etc.) Solar and wind will become the main power sources with things like natural gas becoming backups when things go sour, though even that could be phased out given enough time and batteries (and improvements in efficiency). Coal is dying a very deserved death, and while I don't see any need to build more nuclear, we may as well run what we have as long as is economically feasible. (side note: due to the length of this post, and the sourcing needed, I had to do it on desktop)
So NSG, what is your opinion as to the best power sources now and in the future?
