AboutAllan Yeomans Expertise I maintain that it is practical and economical to end global warming and completely halt climate change. By necessarily must include the elimination of our use of fossil fuels. The science on these issues is often deliberately distorted for marketing reasons. I can answer most questions on the science and mathematics of global warming. I can answer the questions on what we must do to restore climate and weather stability.
Experience Author of PRIORITY ONE Together We can Beat Global Warming. Published as paper-back in US and hard-cover in Australia. Agricultural consultant both in Australia and the US. Aviation meteorologist and lecturer.
Organizations American Association for the Advancement of Science Australian Gliding Association
Publications Various agricultural magazines and newspapers.
Education/Credentials No degree, but post graduate work on nuclear physics and early computer designs at Dept of Physics, University of Sydney. Numerous lectures and presentations at colleges both in Australia and the US.
Awards and Honors Several agricultural design awards at the Australian National Agricultural Field Days. Winner Queensland Gold Coast City 2001 Innovation Design Award
Question What would have to happen to make solar energy more widely used?
Answer Ten times the current cost of electricity would have to be accepted as reasonable. The only valid and logical reasons for not continuing to use fossil fuel is that global warming and climate change are becoming recognized as probably the greatest threat facing human life on the planet.
To stop the rapid degradation in the stability of our weather systems we have to rapidly and totally eliminate our reliance on fossil fuel use. That won’t happen if the alternative energy systems are stupidly expensive by comparison. If they are, then the argument that it is more economical to continue burning fossil fuels and simply spend money fixing the damage climate change causes and rebuilding sea flooded structures is the most economical alternative. Naturally this is the argument heavily promoted by the Middle East states and also the shareholders of oil, gas and coal corporations.
There are two major components that determine wholesale price of electric power. The first is obviously the cost of the raw materials from which the power is generated. And this should include the disposal of waste products from that power generating process. That how nuclear costs are calculated but not fossil fuel costs. They have free to air disposal.
The second cost is the capital value of the plant to produce that power spread as interest cost and depreciation cost over the life of the power generating facility. It is a close enough to say that approximately for every thousand dollars spent in the construction of a power station of any type, it works out it costs one cent cost per kilowatt hour produced. Labour costs to run a power station are relatively tiny and almost insignificant for any large system .
With a coal fired power station the capital cost contributes about one and a half cents and the cost of coal contributes generally between one and a half and three cents per kilowatt hour to the base cost of electricity.
So coal generated electricity costs between two and a half and five cents per kilowatt hour.
With natural gas the capital cost are a little below one cent and the gas cost can be anywhere between three cents and ten cents. So electricity generated using natural gas cost between four cents up to and even over ten cents per kilowatt hour.
Power generated using diesel and similar petroleum fuels to produce electric power has a capital cost of less than one cent. Then to this we fuel cost at around thirty cents per kilowatt hour.
Hydro electricity has zero fuel cost and plants are rarely built with capital costs much exceeding six cents per kilowatt hour.
Hydro electric power therefore costs below six cents at usable sites.
With solar cells the raw material input is zero and the capital and operating costs make solar generated electricity cost between thirty five cents and up to over a dollar per kilowatt hour produced.
Solar thermal power generation, that is power generation using the heat of sun to produce steam to drive conventional steam turbines, currently produces electricity at around fifteen cents per kilowatt hour. But reliable and accurate figures are hard to obtain. Wind and tidal prices are similarly determined less by economic facts and more by public relations claims.
I therefore believe that promoting the expanded use of solar cells is more to convince us that we are actively fighting global warming by using “free sunshine” when in reality we are just kidding ourselves.
