Rhosty, I think you've wrongly conflated two completely different molten salt technologies. I've found no evidence online that any solar thermal installations anywhere using thorium fluoride. And considering ThF4 has a melting point of 1110ºC, I don't believe there'd be any advantage in using it for that purpose even without the extra costs its radioactivity imposes.

Hey Aidan, they tell me those solar arrays make for the interesting sight of birds bursting into flame, when they fly through the arc of the mirrors too.

A bit like spontaneous combustion, helped along by some greenie stupidity.

I wonder if greenies will ever do enough proving of a dream idea, before rushing into wasting tax payer money.

Something has puzzled me lately - I'm a slow learner - around the discussion about forms of renewable energy.

All the bits and pieces of each type of technology - wind-towers, blades, fiddly bits, solar panels, hydroelectric turbines, etc. - are they made using renewable energy or using non-renewable energy ?

Sorry, that might seem such a dumb question, asked by a fool. But if non-renewable energy production is still far cheaper than renewable energy production, even though it is dreadfully polluting and creates CO2, etc., then is it used to create the mechanisms of renewable energy production ? And if so, how much energy goes into (and how much CO2 comes out of) the production of those renewable energy producing technologies (shades of Sraffa !) relative to the production over the life of those renewable energy producers, by non-renewable sources, AND are non-renewable forms of energy used in their production precisely because it is so much cheaper ?

Could a company make any money, producing renewable energy technology using renewable energy technology ?

A fool can ask the obvious question: is the total cost of renewable energy technology still dependent on low-cost non-renewable energy ?

How much more would, say, wind towers cost if they were produced using wind power ? Hoe much more would solar panels cost if they were produced using, say, only solar power ?

Just wondering :)

Joe

Loud mouth. of course you are correct. Have a look at the chart in the first link below and also look at the other links. There's also a wealth of useful background information in the links at the top of this thread. I'd suggest copy the lot to a file and keep it on your computer for future reference.

Scientific American, 'Renewable Energy's hidden costs':
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/renewable-energys-hidden-costs/

Graham Palmer, 2013, 'Household Solar Photovoltaics: Supplier of Marginal Abatement, or Primary Source of Low-Emission Power?': http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/4/1406

System costs for renewables v nuclear:
OECD/NEA ‘System Effects in Low-carbon Electricity Systems’ http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2012/system-effects-exec-sum.pdf

Martin Nicholson and Barry Brook, 2013, ‘Counting the hidden costs of energy’ http://www.energyinachangingclimate.info/Counting%20the%20hidden%20costs%20of%20energy.pd

This discussion has come right to the knub of the whole alternative energy systems.

Peter Lang; most write off nuclear as the backup on risk possibilities.
I say that the first winter night that the power goes off while dinner
is being cooked, any opposition will disappear next morning.

Grim; the idea of a row of dams along the Great Dividing Range I
believe is used in California.
The Catch22 is how much energy is used to build and maintain the dams.

Grim; one reason the Opera House was so expensive was that the
original roof design was faulty and would have fallen down during
construction.
Remember the big row with Utson ?

Tasweigen said:Batteries of manageable size are stuffed after 1,000
deep cycles. We need something else.

True, try nickle iron much longer life more tolerant of abuse.

VK3AUU; We will not have enough natural gas if we start using it for
electricty generation to say nothing of exporting it.
de ...- -.- ..--- .- .- -...

Hasbeen; the problem with the interior was caused by what had to be
changed to the roof design so that it would not fall down.
The consulting engineers spent a lot of time on the English Electric
KDF9 at Sydney University. Remember the big row between the government
and Utson about the changes ?

THE REAL CRUNCH PROBLEM is that the ERoEI of oil has fallen from
100 in 1930 to 10 today and is still falling.
That means oil is reaching the end of its useful life.
Coal in that same time period has fallen from 80 to 30.

What that says we will really have to start on something very soon
because nuclear as a known technology will take many years to build
a fleet of nuclear stations, or whatever alternative.

Bazz,

Thank you. Here’s an LCOE comparison with risk included:

The lowest cost way to generate our electricity and reduce GHG emissions by 2050 is with a large proportion from nuclear power.

Using CSIRO ‘eFuture’ calculator to compare two scenarios to supply electricity to meet the projected electricity demand of the NEM in 2050 as well as cut CO2 emissions.

CO2 emissions for nuclear not permitted are 80 t/MWh versus 25 t/MWh with nuclear permitted. That is, if nuclear is not permitted emissions would be 3.2 times higher than if nuclear is permitted.

The table below lists the LCOE (wholesale price) with nuclear not permitted and with nuclear permitted. Cost items commonly queried are itemised. Costs are in $/MWh.

Item; No nuclear; With Nuclear
LCOE from 'eFuture'; 130; 85
Accident insurance; 0; 0.1
Decommissioning; 0.15; 0.01
Waste management 0; 1
Transmission, 50% penetration; 18.5; 2
Total LCOE; 149; 90

Policy analysts also need to estimate the Expected Value of the risk that renewables will not be able to deliver the benefits claimed by their proponents. We know nuclear can provide around 75% of electricity in an advanced industrial economy because France has been doing it for over 30 years. But renewables have not demonstrated they can or will be able to. Many practitioners think they will not. An estimate, in LCOE equivalent terms, of the risk that renewable technologies do not meet the hopes of the proponents is $54/MWh.

With the risk of failure included the total LCOE for the two scenarios are:

No nuclear = $203/MWh
With nuclear = $101/MWh

Therefore, the LCOE of the ‘no nuclear’ option is 2 x higher than the ‘with nuclear’ option. And emissions would be 3.2 times higher.

The risk that renewables will not be able to do the job is the major risk that those concerned about GHG emissions should be most concerned about, not the costs of nuclear waste disposal, decommissioning, accident insurance etc. all of which are trivial compared with the LCOE and the risk that renewables do not deliver the benefits claimed by their proponents.