Recognitions:
Gold Member

## The cost of generating electricity

I stumbled across what I thought an interesting comparison of the costs to generate electricity from the US Department of energy....includes transmission costs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativ...ferent_sources

Its shows the total cost per megawatt hour: the highest cost sources:

"solar thermal" $312 what this is ?? heat or equivalent electricity? wind offshore:$243
solar PV $211 solar photovoltaic cells while gas seems to offer the lowest cost at from$66 to $125. I am surprised that "advanced nuclear" at$114 is so competitive.

It sure points out the heavy subsidies (taxpayer money) required for solar.

Are subsidies available for offshore power?? Seems tough for it to compete otherwise!

 PhysOrg.com engineering news on PhysOrg.com >> Researchers use light projector and single-pixel detectors to create 3-D images>> GPS solution provides 3-minute tsunami alerts>> Single-pixel power: Scientists make 3-D images without a camera
 I thought coal was supposed to be the cheapest. What about the cost of hydro?
 Recognitions: Gold Member Science Advisor """solar thermal" $312 what this is ?? heat or equivalent electricity?"" that should be the cost of the electricity made by focusing sun to boil water. http://www.fpl.com/environment/solar...shtml?id=alias hydro - my only experience is secondhand. in 1960's my father-in-law's plant in Niagara Falls bought hydro for 2 mils/kwh, or$2 per megawatt hour. seems incredible, today. old jim

Recognitions:
Gold Member

## The cost of generating electricity

Hydro is included in the DOE chart...
I just posted a couple of high and low cost categories.