There are actually many disadvantages to solar that are not mentioned in this article. In general, increased solar is in addition to fossil fuels, not a replacement for fossil fuels. Global fossil fuel usage keeps going up despite ever-accelerating installations of solar plants.
Cost is only one of the factors that constrain solar power, …
There are actually many disadvantages to solar that are not mentioned in this article. In general, increased solar is in addition to fossil fuels, not a replacement for fossil fuels. Global fossil fuel usage keeps going up despite ever-accelerating installations of solar plants.
Cost is only one of the factors that constrain solar power, so unlike many commodities, declining prices do not automatically lead to increased adoption. Low-cost solar is necessary, but not sufficient to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.
Here are the many disadvantages of solar:
1) Geography - most highly populated regions have low solar radiance.
2) Intermittency
3) Utility-scale batteries are extremely expensive - on the order of magnitude of nuclear reactors
4) Solar power only generates electricity, which is just one of many of the uses of fossil fuels.
5) Solar power undermines the electrification of the transportation sector.
6) Solar costs are highly sensitive to interest rates on the bond issues that pay for the cost of initial construction.
7) Long-distance power cables designed to overcome geographical constraints are very expensive and time-consuming to build. Crossing international borders is intensely political outside of Europe.
8) In Temperate latitudes, solar power varies greatly by season. Capacity factors are typically triple in the summer (roughly 30%) as in the winter (roughly 10%). This makes keeping the electrical grid going for 3-6 months out of the year very challenging and expensive for solar.
9) Utility-scale solar plants are very land-intensive. Since preserving wild habitats should be a key goal for protecting the natural environment
Yes, I might write a more detailed article on these topics. But here's a quick reaction to your message:
1. But solar costs drop so much that it's just a matter of time that what works in one place works in another. At a 12% drop per year, in 5 years the cost drops enough to halve. That means that a place with 2400 irradiance will have the same cost per MWh as a place with 1200, just 5 years later.
2. Intermittency can be partially solved with wind and fully solved with batteries.
3. Batteries are very expensive but their price is going down faster than solar
4. Cheap and clean electricity pushes the rest of energy to electrify. Eg: electric cars, heat pumps, electric arcs.
5. Why?
6. How is CAPEX more sensitive to interest rates for solar than other sources? Certainly not than wind and nuclear since building times are shorter. As for the exposure to interest rates, that's much better than the exposure to Saudi Arabia's decision on how much oil they will pump out.
7. You don't need them. You generate electricity locally.
8. Solar is perfectly complementary with wind
9. Solar farming is 100x more productive than agriculture per unit of land. And we only need 0.16% of land, vs agriculture's 14%. So plenty of room to replace a bit of agricultural land with solar panels
I guess that you are too busy to read my article and add a comment, so I will respond here in order:
1) Declining price does not overcome geography. They are two completely separate domains. Just like the declining cost of ocean ships does not affect land-locked desert nations. As someone who writes so well about geography, I am not sure why you cannot see that.
2) Again, you neglect geography. Areas that are both windy and high solar radiance are very rare on planet Earth. See batteries below.
3) Yes, batteries are getting cheaper but they are still on the order of magnitude as 100X the cost of storing fossil fuels. Utility-scale batteries are on the order of magnitude of nuclear power stations in cost and they produce no electricity. That is unlikely to change for many decades.
4) Again, solar/wind are not cheap. When you factor in system costs, new wind and solar are far more expensive than existing fossil fuels (see my article for details). And the intermittency of solar/wind seriously undermines electrification.
6) Because the cost of solar/wind is far more front-loaded into construction costs than for coal and natural gas. Fuel costs do not need to be financed, but construction costs do.
7) Again, you neglect geography. The vast majority of people live in either with lower solar radiance and/or low winds. This is particularly a problem in Asia where the majority of people live. Gobi desert is the only good location for either.
8) Again, you neglect geography. Windy regions and high solar radiance regions are very far apart. Texas and scattered parts of Sahara are some of the few exceptions.
9) For my point, it does not matter whether solar is more productive that agriculture. What matters is that solar and wind are far more land-intensive than nuclear and fossil fuels. Solar replacing agriculture destroys wild habitat by forcing agriculture to expand elsewhere.
I know that you mean well by your writing, but I think that you take Green energy corporations and Green financial analysts like Lazards too much at their word. They have a huge profit incentive to make solar and wind look far better than it is. They need to keep government subsidies coming, so they use unrealistic assumptions in their reports.
The original commenter just asked for disadvantages. I don't see how you can claim that my list are not disadvantages, even if we have differing views on how well those disadvantages can be overcome.
How about this?
I am publishing an article on the limitations of solar power on November 12th. It is not really a response to your article, as it was already in the publishing queue, but it is about the same topic.
Feel free to add comments to the bottom of my article when it is published then we can have a discussion.
There are actually many disadvantages to solar that are not mentioned in this article. In general, increased solar is in addition to fossil fuels, not a replacement for fossil fuels. Global fossil fuel usage keeps going up despite ever-accelerating installations of solar plants.
Cost is only one of the factors that constrain solar power, so unlike many commodities, declining prices do not automatically lead to increased adoption. Low-cost solar is necessary, but not sufficient to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.
Here are the many disadvantages of solar:
1) Geography - most highly populated regions have low solar radiance.
2) Intermittency
3) Utility-scale batteries are extremely expensive - on the order of magnitude of nuclear reactors
4) Solar power only generates electricity, which is just one of many of the uses of fossil fuels.
5) Solar power undermines the electrification of the transportation sector.
6) Solar costs are highly sensitive to interest rates on the bond issues that pay for the cost of initial construction.
7) Long-distance power cables designed to overcome geographical constraints are very expensive and time-consuming to build. Crossing international borders is intensely political outside of Europe.
8) In Temperate latitudes, solar power varies greatly by season. Capacity factors are typically triple in the summer (roughly 30%) as in the winter (roughly 10%). This makes keeping the electrical grid going for 3-6 months out of the year very challenging and expensive for solar.
9) Utility-scale solar plants are very land-intensive. Since preserving wild habitats should be a key goal for protecting the natural environment
And there are others.
Yes, I might write a more detailed article on these topics. But here's a quick reaction to your message:
1. But solar costs drop so much that it's just a matter of time that what works in one place works in another. At a 12% drop per year, in 5 years the cost drops enough to halve. That means that a place with 2400 irradiance will have the same cost per MWh as a place with 1200, just 5 years later.
2. Intermittency can be partially solved with wind and fully solved with batteries.
Wind complementarity tackled in this article
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/wind-and-solar-a-perfect-match
3. Batteries are very expensive but their price is going down faster than solar
4. Cheap and clean electricity pushes the rest of energy to electrify. Eg: electric cars, heat pumps, electric arcs.
5. Why?
6. How is CAPEX more sensitive to interest rates for solar than other sources? Certainly not than wind and nuclear since building times are shorter. As for the exposure to interest rates, that's much better than the exposure to Saudi Arabia's decision on how much oil they will pump out.
7. You don't need them. You generate electricity locally.
8. Solar is perfectly complementary with wind
9. Solar farming is 100x more productive than agriculture per unit of land. And we only need 0.16% of land, vs agriculture's 14%. So plenty of room to replace a bit of agricultural land with solar panels
I guess that you are too busy to read my article and add a comment, so I will respond here in order:
1) Declining price does not overcome geography. They are two completely separate domains. Just like the declining cost of ocean ships does not affect land-locked desert nations. As someone who writes so well about geography, I am not sure why you cannot see that.
2) Again, you neglect geography. Areas that are both windy and high solar radiance are very rare on planet Earth. See batteries below.
3) Yes, batteries are getting cheaper but they are still on the order of magnitude as 100X the cost of storing fossil fuels. Utility-scale batteries are on the order of magnitude of nuclear power stations in cost and they produce no electricity. That is unlikely to change for many decades.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/more-evidence-that-solar-wind-cannot
4) Again, solar/wind are not cheap. When you factor in system costs, new wind and solar are far more expensive than existing fossil fuels (see my article for details). And the intermittency of solar/wind seriously undermines electrification.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-solar-wind-undermines-evs
5) I explain fully in linked article above.
6) Because the cost of solar/wind is far more front-loaded into construction costs than for coal and natural gas. Fuel costs do not need to be financed, but construction costs do.
7) Again, you neglect geography. The vast majority of people live in either with lower solar radiance and/or low winds. This is particularly a problem in Asia where the majority of people live. Gobi desert is the only good location for either.
8) Again, you neglect geography. Windy regions and high solar radiance regions are very far apart. Texas and scattered parts of Sahara are some of the few exceptions.
9) For my point, it does not matter whether solar is more productive that agriculture. What matters is that solar and wind are far more land-intensive than nuclear and fossil fuels. Solar replacing agriculture destroys wild habitat by forcing agriculture to expand elsewhere.
I know that you mean well by your writing, but I think that you take Green energy corporations and Green financial analysts like Lazards too much at their word. They have a huge profit incentive to make solar and wind look far better than it is. They need to keep government subsidies coming, so they use unrealistic assumptions in their reports.
The original commenter just asked for disadvantages. I don't see how you can claim that my list are not disadvantages, even if we have differing views on how well those disadvantages can be overcome.
How about this?
I am publishing an article on the limitations of solar power on November 12th. It is not really a response to your article, as it was already in the publishing queue, but it is about the same topic.
Feel free to add comments to the bottom of my article when it is published then we can have a discussion.