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Wind and solar power, we are always told, are really cheaper than fossil-fuel power, if you tot up the true costs of using each type.
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These arguments have always been dubious on their merits, if not outright disingenuous. Yes, the wind is free and the sunshine is free, but nothing about capturing either one for useful work is anything like free. In fact, both common sense and a growing body of evidence suggest that both wind and solar power are going to be far more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives and do a great deal of environmental damage on their own merits.
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At the most fundamental level, these power generators sit on land — lots and lots of land — most of which is not free. Even if land is being used strictly for wilderness, that use of the land provides society with quite massive benefits (they are called “ecosystem services”) such as maintaining wildlife, offering protective buffers against weather and climate fluctuations, purifying and controlling local air and water flows, and all that good stuff. When it comes to land, one would have hoped by now that environmental advocates (of all people!) should have learned that land is never free. And neither is the transport of wind or solar power free, nor is the technology to capture wind power and solar power.
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But still more awkward is the fact that wind and solar power are unlikely to follow the optimistic cost-curve declines that we’ve been promised over the years. A recent article on solar photovoltaic (pv) power by Jonathan Gifford at pv magazine suggests that the cost curve promises are quickly coming to a halt. Gifford quotes a senior exec with a large solar power system producer, explaining that, while solar component costs have been in decline for about six years now, the easy days are behind us. He …….