Increasing Funding for Micropower (Alternative Energy)

My opponent has forfeited the previous round, which is bad conduct, especially so when he initiated a five round debate. A five round debate signals he wanted to get into details. In this round I present the economics of micropower. Micropower from wind costs more than twice conventional power and micropower from solar costs more than four times conventional. there is nothing in the government ITP program that hints at bringing those high cost down. It seems they are just looking at a very few odd applications, ike getting methane from pig farms, while pretending that it might make wind or solar viable. Micropower from gas turbines is well advanced by industry, so there is no need for government funded research there either. wind and solar depend critically on a power grid for the backup when the wind dies or when there is no solar at night, so the grid will not go away. Here are all the calculations, with the references to the costs: Coal, nuclear power, or combined cycle natural gas turbine power delivered over a grid costs about $0.055 per kWh. Small scale wind power, using the grid for backup costs about $0.082 per KWh, and solar with the grid for backup costs $0.24 per kWh. If the grid is not used, than any expensive gas turbine or diesel generator that could provide all the power must be purchased and kept idle for 35% to 50% of the time when wind or solar happens to be available. Even then there must be a local grid so a gas turbine is shared in the neighborhood. Therefore, there is no economic need for micropower because micorpower increases the cost of electricity substantially over not having micropower. "Micropower" means "power distributed on a small scale using local generators." http://www.tfd.com... There is nothing in the definition that implies the source of the power. One of the earliest applications, c. 1986) was to heat a swimming pool with the waste heat from a small diesel generator. The electricity generated could be either used locally or sold back to the power company through the grid. The goal was to heat the pool, but generating electricity as a by product made the cost of heating less than using a straight heater. Now pollution laws have caught up, and this application is not so common. In remote areas, the cost of micropower can be less than running long transmission lines to a central grid. In developing countries, there isn't any power grid to hook to and micropower is a way to electrify areas incrementally while avoiding the expense of constructing a regional or national grid. Micropower installations are also used for hospitals, radio stations, semiconductor manufacturing, and other application where it is important to maintain power if the grid fails. Large power plants are generally more efficient than small ones. In this debate, my opponent says we need micropower for economic competitiveness. Micropower is only competitive in special circumstances, such as when miles of line are required to connect to the grid. Here are the costs, per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by various methods: 1. Hydroelectric 0.009 2. Coal $0.029 3. Nuclear $0.030 4. Combined cycle gas turbine $0.03 to $0.05 5. Large-scale wind $0.047 6. Small-scale gas turbine $0.052 7. Biomass gasification $0.07 to $0.09 8. Small-scale wind $0.08 9. Small-scale Diesel $0.30 (I will guess that small scale gas turbine is a about the same) 10. Large-scale solar $0.20 to $0.30 11. Small-scale solar $0.20 to $0.50 References 1 and 6: The Bureaus of reclamation gives costs of hydro, nuclear, coal and small-scale gas turbine power as 0.6. 2.1. 2.1, and 3.4 cents per kWh, respectively, in 1995-1999. http://www.usbr.gov... Current coal and nuclear costs are around 3 cents, so I estimate that their numbers for hydro and small-scale gas turbines have risen about 50% as well. References for 2 and 3: http://www.nucleartourist.com... Nuclear includes plant decommissioning, but apparently not waste disposal. My understanding is that waste disposal is around 20% of total cost. 5 and 8: American Wind Energy Association http://www.awea.org... adding back in the 2.1 cent per kWh wind production subsidy http://awea.org... 4, 7, 9, 10, and 11: http://www.solarbuzz.com... These are solely the generation costs. They do not include the cost of operating a grid. All the large-scale generators require a grid for distribution. Biomass is medium scale; if you happen to have a pig farm, the methane will likely be reliable and the power consumed locally. that's good for pig farms, but not for most of the population. All the other methods usually use a grid for backup. There are a few low-power applications where batteries are practical for the backup. To use wind or solar without a grid, in most applications either a small gas turbine or a diesel will be required in addition to the wind or solar energy source. To figure the grid cost, consider that the cheapest delivered price of electricity to consumers in the US is $0.0635 in Idaho (hydro) and $0.0665 in West Virginia (coal). http://www.think-energy.net... Consequently the maximum cost of a grid for relatively short distances, the diameter of West Virginia, must be no more than $0.035 cents per kWh, the rest being for the coal generated electricity costs. However, that no doubt includes state taxes and regulatory costs as well. Being generous to the states, the grid cost is maybe $0.025 and more depending upon the grid distances covered. So coal, nuclear, or combined cycle gas turbine costs about $0.030 + $0.025 grid = $0.055 kWh. Small scale wind assuming 65% availability is $0.08 + $.025 grid + 35% x $.03 backup = $0.12 kWh Small scale solar is 50% available so it is $0.20 + $0.025 + 50% x $.03 = $0.24 KWh. People pay a lot more, depending upon the state. That may be because of longer transmission costs. California gets 25% of it's power from out of state so as to keep power plants distant. Also, the state requires some users to subsidize others, adding greatly to costs. those are artificial artefact's of government, not fundamentals of cost structure.