Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Why Rising Capital Costs Could Kill Greentech || Peter Zeihan" video.

SORRY BUT PETER IS 100% WRONG on the project costings of renewables. FYI - I AM AN ENGINEER (Australian) I don't know where he's getting this nonsense from but he is so wrong and its infuriating. This is the sort of crap that drives engineers crazy. 1) The capital out lay of coal, hydro and nuclear is now multiple times higher than Wind and Solar. In Australia we have 22.7 Gigawatts (GW) of coal to replace and IT HAS TO BE REPLACED because most of it is old and worn out. In fact we have already turned of 6 coal fired plants NOT because of emissions but because they were so old we couldn't keep then running. BASED ON the Hinkley Point C nuclear project in Britain, the basic cost of nuclear is £10.3 Billion/GW based on a project cost of £33 Billion for 3.2GW. That £10.3 Billion is AU$19.8 Billion/GW. The current cost of wind and solar in Australia ranges from a low of AU$1.55 Billion/GW to a high of AU$1.86 Billion/GW. The Capital cost of replacing that 22.7 GW with nuclear is AU$450 Billion. Building the standard 2.2 times for Wind and Solar to make up for night time and wind not blowing the capital cost of 50 GW of wind and solar is between AU$77 Billion and AU$93 Billion. Even if we double that cost to include power grid upgrades we are still less than 1/2 the cost of nuclear. And before anyone says hydro we are also doing the Snowy 2.0 project that started at AU$4 Billion and went to AU$5 Billion before it started and will now cost at least AU$12 Billion with some estimates putting it at AU$14-15 Billion. The main reason for the cost blow out was because SOME CLOWN DID NOT include the power lines to connect it to the grid. At 2GW full capacity it will cost AU$6 Billion/GW or more than 3 times the cost of wind and solar. Because we are such a dry continent hydro is actually getting more and more expensive because it has to go into even more remote places. SO when Peter's talking about raising capital HIS FACTS ARE WRONG. 2) The actual project expenditure model Peter is are talking about is TOTALLY WRONG. When you are building coal, nuclear, hydro you CANNOT produce any power and start recouping costs until it is 100% complete. You cannot turn on 1/2 or 1/4 or any other fraction or percent of a coal, nuclear or hydro project. BUT YOU CAN WITH WIND AND SOLAR. The moment you put up the first array of solar it can be connected and start recouping money. The moment you put up the first wind turbine it can be connected and start recouping money. That money from a partially completed wind or solar project can help finance the rest of the project. The only reason people need to find 100% of the capital for a wind or solar project is they're INCOMPETENT at project management. 3) The problem with wind and solar has always been and will always be that it is cannot supply ON DEMAND and needs to have a buffer system. This has also been a huge problem with coal, nuclear and hydro power because although they can run 24/7 they do NOT RESPOND quick enough for the daily swings of modern society. This is why many modern societies have smaller gas turbine plants scattered about. They can spin up and shut down as needed. Hydro plants also use IF THE GEOGRAPHY ALLOWS to have small pumped hydro systems up higher in the hills. Because those pumped hydro systems are smaller they have smaller turbines that can be spun up and shut down as needed. Solar and Wind actually needs 2 systems in the future. The large batteries that people like Elon Musk sell are great for very fast response to changes in demand that happen every day, BUT when it comes to storing energy at one time of year to use at another time of year those batteries are almost useless. This is where hydrogen fueled gas turbines which already exist can be used. Before anyone says they don't exist BOTH GE and Siemens offer gas turbines that can run on up to 50% Hydrogen RIGHT NOW. This is not future tech needing development it EXISTS RIGHT NOW. I did my degree in aerospace back in the 1980s and when it looked like we'd need to move away from jet fuel (kerosene) they started doing research into hydrogen. By the late 1990s that technology and all the issues were worked out except for one thing. Storing enough hydrogen on a passenger plane to get it to fly anywhere was a nightmare and made it unfeasible. PETER REALLY NEEDS TO START SPEAKING TO SOME ENGINEERS.
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