Oh dear, mhaze.

You seem to have missed the part where I literally flagged the ellipsis with ‘For the EASILY DISTRACTED and those with comprehension issues’.

In other words, exactly your situation.

Nothing hidden - just cut to help the easily distracted and to demonstrate that it made no difference to my point.

How dumb are you to think I'd pull that - let alone need to.

Just on the cost issue. Yet again!

There are many ways to calculate the costs of wind/solar... and coal and gas and nukes and hydro for that matter.

And I agree that many of the government run institutions use methods that arrive at the answers the establishment want by looking at a subset of the over all cost of installing wind/solar.

But that's not conclusive unless you want it to be.

Alternatively, rather than look at a subset of the costs, others look at the overall cost borne by the nation and use price as a proxy for the costs. Higher the price = higher cost. Rising price = rising cost. Economics 101.

This is what Lomborg's analysis does. His data derives from the IEA. It look at the system at its entirely. But its not the only analysis to do that. Others (Ueckerdt et al.) for example use a process called “System LCOE” (Levelized Costs of Electricity ) to show that higher penetration of renewables makes them more expensive per unit of output. For example they show that, in Germany, the MwH cost of renewable electricity rose by 60% when renewables went from 10% to 40% penetration. Other studies have found similar results in China which, for example, "revealed that all provincial S-LCOE of China's PV is currently higher than local desulfurized coal electricity price (DCEP)."

And bear in mind that price is adjusted down by subsidies. So our own government's policy of electricity bill rebates reduces the headline cost of power. In the US wind/solar subsidies reach around $60 billion per year. If they were included in the overall costs, it would make the wind/solar cult look even worse.

Little wonder that the more forward thinkers are looking at SMRs again.

Nothing to say on your ellipsis blunder, mhaze?

OK, let’s move on. Perhaps headings and separators will make things easier for you.

LCOE vs "System LCOE"

//…many of the government run institutions use methods that arrive at the answers the establishment want by looking at a subset…//

In other words: "Every energy economics body on earth is wrong except the handful I cherry-pick."

LCOE is used because it compares apples to apples: the cost of building and operating a generator. That’s why investors trust it, and why private capital pours into wind and solar but not coal.

System LCOE isn’t a "gotcha." It models integration costs - transmission, balancing, storage. AEMO’s ISP and CSIRO’s GenCost already do that. Their conclusion? Even with integration, renewables plus firming are still cheaper than new coal or nuclear in Australia.
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Germany/China cherry-pick

Germany’s bills rose early because they were early adopters, building when renewables cost 5-10x more. They locked in high FiTs and layered hefty levies. That’s not today’s reality.

China? Coal looks cheaper only because pollution isn’t priced, supply is state-controlled, and renewables remain at pilot scale. That’s not proof renewables are expensive, it’s proof coal is artificially cheap when externalities are dumped on the public.
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Subsidies hypocrisy

//In the US wind/solar subsidies reach around $60 billion per year…//

Global fossil subsidies hit $7 trillion in 2022 (IMF). So if subsidies are the metric, fossil fuels dwarf everything else.

You hold subsidies against renewables, but SMRs (your “forward-thinking” future) literally depend on them. NuScale exists only because billions in government underwriting keep it afloat.

By your own standard, that makes SMRs "a cult propped up by subsidies."
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TLDR

- Your "system cost" cherry-picks early Germany and provincial China while ignoring present-day evidence from AEMO, CSIRO, Lazard, and IEA.

- Your subsidy argument collapses once you admit coal and nuclear are subsidy-dependent too.

- Your "price proxy" shortcut confuses correlation with causation - high bills in some countries stem from taxes and fossil volatility, not renewables.

Meanwhile, investors are voting with their money - and they’re not buying what you’re selling.

So here's the thing. JD says subsidising wind/solar is fine because they are new technologies and he claims, sans evidence, that all new technologies need subsidy. Then he claims that (new technology) SMR isn't viable because, among other things, it has to be subsidised.

I point out the rank hypocrisy.

Rather than try to defend the rank hypocrisy, he simply tries to hide it by offering a quote where he deletes his claim about SMR's being subsidised.

And he thinks that's valid, honest, and not the least childish. Ethics of an alley cat. I've never understood the willingness of people to play the clown rather than admit error. JD is near the top of that shameful list.

_____________________________________________________________________

And now he's back on cherry-picking. Every bit of evidence he doesn't like is, he claims, cherry-picked. Somehow Lomborg using world-wide data from a world-wide organisation to show a world-wide phenomena is cherry-picked. Still playing the clown.

"Global fossil subsidies hit $7 trillion in 2022 (IMF). "

Of which 81% are so-called 'implicit costs', ie not actual costs. I'd explain it to you if I thought you had the slightest interest in understanding the rubbish you fall for.

No, that’s not "the thing", mhaze.

//JD says subsidising wind/solar is fine because they are new technologies and he claims, sans evidence, that all new technologies need subsidy.//

It's not “sans evidence” at all. Coal, gas, hydro, nuclear - all were subsidised in their early stages. That’s the historical record.

//Then he claims that (new technology) SMR isn't viable because, among other things, it has to be subsidised.

No, what I said was the US SMR you linked to wasn’t suggestive of an industry shift.

//I point out the rank hypocrisy.//

Only you didn’t - because, with or without subsidies, my point still stood:

“cut … to demonstrate that it made no difference to my point.”
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10653#371850

//Rather than try to defend the rank hypocrisy, he simply tries to hide it by offering a quote where he deletes his claim about SMR's being subsidised.//

Once again for the slow:

“Nothing hidden - just cut to help the easily distracted and to demonstrate that it made no difference to my point.”
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10653#371850

Again, I flagged the ellipsis explicitly and the point remained intact.

//Every bit of evidence he doesn't like is, he claims, cherry-picked.//

"No, cherry-picking is using one narrow and contextless metric to distract."
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=10628#371076

What I pointed out is that Lomborg’s retail-price chart is correlation, not causation. Germany’s high bills come from early high-cost renewables, FiTs, and levies - not the cost of renewables today.

//Somehow Lomborg using world-wide data from a world-wide organisation to show a world-wide phenomena is cherry-picked.//

World-wide data plotted without context is still cherry-picking. Correlation =/= causation. Every credible body shows renewables drive wholesale prices down.

You’ve produced one correlation chart. That’s the difference between propaganda and analysis.

//“Global fossil subsidies hit $7 trillion in 2022 (IMF).” Of which 81% are so-called 'implicit costs', ie not actual costs.//

So “not actual costs” = climate damage, air pollution, and health impacts? That’s the very definition of externalities - costs dumped on the public. The IMF, IEA, and OECD all treat them as subsidies because they are: private profit, public loss.

Try again.

SMR are not made for large amounts of power. One million wat hours = 1,000 KwH. Places like car manufacturers or Aluminium smelters. You would need 1000 SMR for i gig of power. We have sunshine galour which is free.
It is only gueswork to say how long a solar panel goes for. The first solar panels built in the sixties for an experiment are still producing power