What are good arguments for fossil fuels vs renewable energy?

Question

What I'd like is an objective comparison of the costs and benefits of two groups of mass energy. Group A will be fossil fuels and Group B will be renewable energy.

When I read articles comparing groups A and B, I am usually reading an argument which is pitting the costs of A against the benefits of B. And there are plenty of examples where this is examined in great depth.

Thus, there seems to be a deficit of information regarding the benefits of A and the costs of B. Can anyone share some links or information to reduce this deficit?

Answer 1

From my admittedly limited knowledge, I think I can offer several costs and benefits of several different power sources.



Coal:

pro: Significant supply, cheap as long as you don't care about environmental damage (not just CO2, also soot and so forth) and the human cost (lives lost in mining and so on), available basically on-demand

con: very dirty, expensive if you take measures to prevent pollution, finite supply, lots of CO2 per unit power



hydro:

pro: fairly cheap, good baseline power source, no CO2 emissions

con: damages aquatic and/or aquatic-adjacent ecosystems, can lead to methane formation



natural gas:

pro: cheap, can use either biosourced or mined fuel, best CO2 to power ratio of a fossil fuel, good baseline power with high adjustability for demand, fairly clean-burning

con: concerns about local damage from fracking, can leak methane (a very potent greenhouse gas)



nuclear:

pro: no CO2 emissions, good baseline power, can be built anywhere, fuel is concentrated so fuel transportation costs are relatively low

con: expensive, concerns about radiation leaks in the event of any problems (though not during normal operation)



wind:

pro: clean, relatively cheap, no fuel needed

con: intermittent, can harm birds, only works in windy areas



solar:

pro: clean, no fuel needed, can be built anywhere

con: kind of expensive, can use a lot of land, only works during the day



biomass:

pro: sequesters carbon, can be on-demand, fuel can be grown pretty much anywhere, can reduce garbage/landfill use

con: can drive up food prices depending on feedstock (especially if grain rather than stalks/waste is used), uses water, uses land

Answer 2

Pro Fossil Fuels

Answer 3

There is a step-by-step video guide online right now that can show you how to reduce your power bill by making your own solar panels.





Take a look at it: http://tinyurl.com/Earth4EnergyRew





Why pay thousands of dollars for solar energy ($27,000 average cost) when you can build your own solar panel system for just a fraction of the retail cost. You can build a single solar panel or you can build an entire array of panels to power your whole house.



Some people are saving 50% on their power bill, some people are reducing their bill to nothing. But what’s most impressive is that just by following these instructions some are even making the power company pay them!

Answer 4

Since the invention of the first leaded fossil fuel by GM, the ozone and human health has been steadily declining. Renewable resources provide both humans and earth a better alternative... Something like that

Answer 5

A lot of good answers here. So I will just add a few points, Coal is not dirty (I worked in coal fired stations for 30yrs) but yes it produces lots of CO2, not soot I would have been fired, and the station fined thousands, if my plant produced any soot or dust,

Natural gas is the best and cleanest, however it is a crying shame to burn natural gas to produce electricity when it is so much more useful for heating and cooking, The UK had 50yrs supply of natural gas until they used it all up in power stations.

Hydro is brilliant, they can run to full power in less than a minute, but there are only so many places you can build one.

Solar is useless, unless one is talking about panels on home roofs to feed back into the grid and offset costs.

Answer 6

I can only touch the surface, but here goes.

Fossil Fuels

Readily available. CONUS (continental US) have more proven oil researves than the middle east. We just need permisison to access them.

Low Cost. Coal, oil, gas, for as long as they remain abundant will remian low cost options to provide power and energy to run your economy.

Abundant. CONUS has more proven oil researves than the middle east. CONUS has more than 300 years worth of coal

Infrastructure: The US and the world has a large and complex infrastructure in place to support fossil fuels at a relatively low annual cost.

Dependable: With available fossil fuels you can reliably produce all of the energy required to run a modern society.

Jobs: Domestic production of fossil fuels means more high paying jobs for the working people in a nation.

Taxes: Domestic production of fossil fuels is a ready source of tax revenue to support local regional and national governements. This can in turn help to prop up some of the expensive social programs supported by these governments.



Renewable energy

Relatively high initial cost. As technology continues to advance these costs are coming down. However for political reasons the most cost beneficial forms of renewable neergy are also considered the least desireable. i.e. Hydro-electric and direct geo-technical

Availability: Until infrastructure supporting renewable energy is built and expanded renewable options are not always available

Reliability: Solar and wind are very much weather dependant. energy demand is not as weather dependant and what might cause a high energy demand does not mean high renewable energy production.

Ongoing cost: With an oil well you have a number of pumps and some pipe. Oilt is collected and shipped to refineries for processing. In general less equipment per dekatherm is needed for oil gas or coal than you need for the equivalent renewable energy source. Exceptions are hydro-electric and geo-technical. Thus the long time Maintenance & Repair costs for renewable are relatively higher for renewable energy over fossil fuels.

Answer 7

I think that there's a lot of information available from Jeff Engrs answer. Nowhere in his "ongoing costs" does he include the waste stream or its effects. This seems to be a very consistent bias in all extractive industries - our corporation doesn't pay to deal with the waste stream, therefore there are no associated costs.

Answer 8

Solar and Wind have taxpayer subsidies that are 20 times greater than fossil fuel subsidies per MWH. Not a very good deal for taxpayers/consumers.



Wind/Solar are not reliable enough for an industrialized society.



Wind/Solar require massive areas of land...I've driven past miles and miles of once beautiful land....now scarred by windfarms.....so sad.



In my opinion, pull all taxpayer subsidies for all forms of energy and let the marketplace decide.

Answer 9

The main one is that, until they run out, their energy is available on demand; when we need them, we do not need to store the energy or have a backup system like we need for wind or solar power.



Of the renewable energy sources, hydroelectric power is available on demand. Geothermal energy is also available on demand, but it is only renewable in some cases. In many cases, we can draw heat from a geothermal reservoir faster than energy enters that system from conduction from Earth's interior or from radioactive decay, and the reservoir will cool over time as we use it.

Answer 10

When the question of added CO2 emissions is finally answered with a certainty level of over 98%, only then will we be able to progress forward on that issue. The overwhelming blitz of misinformation on CO2 impact is the deciding factor.

------------------------------



It is hoped that fossil fuels will still be the choice and higher octane fuels will be available at a cheaper cost. My new 2014 Shelby GT1000 with 950 horsepower will be fun to drive on the streets and I can show off its power at will if gas stays cheap.



:-)

Answer 11

If you were wanting to make a case for fossil fuels based on economic reasons then coal is a millstone which will drag the argument down. Much better would be to focus on just natural gas.



Of all the sources of power, natural gas is the cheapest, coal is the third most expensive being exceeded on cost by only photovoltaic and solar thermal energy.



Costs do vary from country to country depending on what resources are available, the figures below relate only to the US as a whole, there are significant regional variations even within the US.



A power station generating electricity using the advanced combined cycle with natural gas produces the cheapest electricity of all, at a cost of $66 per megawatt hour. The next most cost efficient method is again natural gas but this time the conventional combined cycle, this costs $69MWh.



There’s multiple energy sources that fall in the $90 to $110 per MWh bracket, in cost order (lowest first) they are hydro, onshore wind, geothermal, advanced natural gas with carbon capture, estuarine tidal, low grade coal (e.g. lignite) without CCS, advanced gas turbine, conventional coal (bituminous), solar focus and nuclear.



At the upper end of the cost scale, again in price order with lowest first are biomass, conventional gas turbine, solar farms, offshore wind, open sea tidal, oil, coal with CCS, wave, photovoltaic, solar thermal.



Even within the US there are noticeable regional differences. In California for example the most cost effective power sources are biomass, hydro, wind and geothermal – all cost less than the $66/MWh for natural gas across the US as a whole.



On a global scale the prices are roughly in line with those of the US. Generally natural gas is the most cost effective, then the common types of renewable (wind, hydro etc), then nuclear, the less common renewables, coal, and most expensive are the solar sources.



Oil is the commodity that varies the most in cost efficiency, in the Middle East it’s the cheapest form of power generation but in many parts of the world it’s one of the most expensive.



Above all it’s availability that determines cost. In some parts of the world, Iceland being one example, geothermal energy is abundant and extremely cheap but in other places this wouldn’t be an option.



One possible future source of very cheap energy would be nuclear fusion, this has the advantage over nuclear fission of being controllable and no radiation. Containment is the stumbling block at present, once this is overcome then there’s the potential for abundant cheap energy for everyone. If and when this happens will remain to be seen.



For now, natural gas is the cheapest option. It’s relatively abundant and we have the infrastructure in place for processing and utilising it. It is becoming more expensive as extraction costs escalate, a consequence of having to extract from ever harder locations.



I would imagine that in a few years time as gas prices continue to rise and economies of scale bring down the price of renewables, we’ll see hydro, wind and geothermal being the most economical power sources.