Investment company, Goldman Sachs’ recent research forecasts renewable energy to be cheaper than other forms of power by 2020.
Alberto Gandolfi, from Goldman Sachs Research said,
What started as a decarbonisation process – thanks to better technology – is about to become a process driven by costs and the economics.
This sounds like more proof that Carbon Fee and Dividend will work. CF&D would drive up the price of fossil fuel and their products and speed up the consumer switch to clean – and now cheaper – alternatives.
It would also give investors confidence that divesting in fossil fuel and investing in the alternatives is the clever move.
The resulting fall in carbon dioxide levels would be a big win for the climate and our planet.
Which begs another question: why is the UK forging ahead with a new nuclear reactor when the cost of renewable power is falling and the technology is coming on in leaps and bounds?
Written by Louisa Davison, 29 August 2017
Views expressed here not necessarily shared by Citizens Climate Lobby.
The wind doesn’t blow all the time and we have limited storage capacity so we need low-carbon sources of power that can fill in the gaps when there’s not enough wind or sun, such as nuclear.
As Paul said above, we cannot currently rely on variable sources of energy such as solar or wind. When clouds roll in or wind drops, the electricity load provided to the grid drops off precipitously, and it takes too much time to bring other power plants online to cover the demand. The resulting blackout would undo any progress made from the renewables as generators switch on and emergency services are called into action.
If we are to rely solely on renewables, we first need significantly more cost-effective and safe ways of storing energy generated. This technology exists already in the form of pumped hydro dams (difficult to build because of massive infrastructure needs and lack of space in the UK, combined with generally flat topography compared to continental Europe/the US) and flywheels, among others. Hopefully, we will see more breakthroughs with double capacity solid-state lithium batteries (not lithium-ion) in the future.
There’s an excellent documentary I’m pulling a lot of this info from that can be found here.