The cost of energy...

King of the Americas

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...so after hours and hours of debate between myself and local land owners, we arrived at a single conclusion; that there is really no way to tell how much electricity from any specific source costs.

For example, a wind industry official claims that wind energy is cheaper than say solar energy to produce, but they fail to account for what subsidies they get compared to that of the solar cell industry.

The water gets even cloudier when you try to compare those prices to that of oil, or natural gas. I mean how would one estimate the cost of procuring oil from the Middle East, during these uncertain times???

Does anyone know of any accumulation of informaion upon this subject that I might reference? I am looking for a comparitive site that address some of the issues I raised here...
 
Are you looking for a technical analysis, that is, energy cost to produce for energy gained? OTOH, are you looking for a listing of current price relationships so that you can wind up with a snapshot of current $ per kWh delivered to consumers?

The two aren't always related...
 
How about both...

I mean, wouldn't the price that you 'pay at the pump', or rather in your bill to the electric company would include all those varibles?
 
If part of "the price" of Arab Oil is killing 100,000 Iraqis , or supporting the Israeli Defence Budget to the tune of several billion dollars annually, then it seems rather high..

If we are to include such variables in the calculation, I don't see how a dollar cost could ever adequately reflect reality.

The same argument might be levelled at any cash only assessment of say environmental effect, or lots of other issues.

Is it cheaper to tax smokers and let them die of cancer than to induce them to quit and support them in their old age?
 
This is my point exactly, deciphering the 'actual' cost of energy derived from oil is all but impossible.

So how would one answer a claim that wind energy costs more to produce than energy produce from oil, when one can't possibly know how much energy from oil actually costs us???

Moreover, how would you go about considering the subsidies each industry gets, and or the tax breaks the oil industry got this year, into the equation???
 
One thing to add,
There’s also the tricky issue of factoring in environmental costs. It's hard to put a dollar amount on the consequences of creating (or not creating) pollution, unless you institute something like a carbon tax. Who knows the full extent of the “hidden costs” of burning fossil fuels?
(cough, cough)… Global Warming
:duck:
 
So from the lack of responses, I gather that, either there is little interest in this topic, or there is little comparitive research that has been done on this topic, that has been seen or read by JREF board posters...

Which is it people?
 
King of the Americas said:
So from the lack of responses, I gather that, either there is little interest in this topic, or there is little comparitive research that has been done on this topic, that has been seen or read by JREF board posters...

Which is it people?
Click to expand...

I think it's interesting, but I just have no idea. I'm looking forward to hearing from someone who might.

I suspect that a challenge would be in finding a truly unbiased and complete source of information to do any comparisons. Each of these industries has a strong incentive to paint their own in the most attractive light possible.
 
For my internship, I've been involved in looking at fuel energy intensities. Specifically, I've been looking at ethanol and gasoline. However, many of the studies I've come across (tools I've used, etc.) have provision for looking at many different sources of energy, from electricity sources for plug-in cars to hypothetical future sources like Hydrogen cracking.

There's actually been a lot of work done on energy costs (intensities). The least scientific wind up meandering off into policy suggestions.

To arrive at a dollar cost, you'd have a number that's only peripherally related to the energy intensity. Speculation also drives oil prices. Many oil companies are doing strategic planning at less than the current price of a barrel, because the real-world physical processes cost less!
 
Due to weather reliability problems associated with both wind and solar, you would always need the ability to cover full electric needs with the traditional power sources. Can they be started quickly enough, or would they have to be kept running though idle?

I don't know how you can assign those costs accurately.
 
I finally heard back from the National Energy Information Center (NEIC).

Here is a comparison of cost per kWh for electricity produced from different types of power plants/energy sources, for power plants placed in service in the years indicated and operational for at least 20 years. To convert those prices to cents per kWh, divide by 1000.

www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html

The AEO forecast does not include qualitative valuations of such things
as viewscapes (such as might be impacted by wind turbines or coal strip and
mountain top removal mines) or attempt to qualify "external" costs that are not internalized by the market or otherwise "captured" in currently in-place
environmental legislation (such as the real and potential environmental
impacts of coal mining and combustion, from which we obtain currently about 50% of our electricity nationwide; only about 3 percent of US electricity is
currently generated using fuel oil).


The official also noted some other sources of information that you may find useful:

www.eere.energy.gov
www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower
www.awea.org
www.ucsusa.org
www.ases.org
 
I am on the forth site the government offical offered, and I still haven't found the comparitive table of cost per kWhm, for each energy industry...

I am writing another e-mail...
 
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