Clearly this is cheaper if we can use our current fossil plants until they need replacing anyway.
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At that time, Spain was looking at subsidized prices for solar coming in at 9X traditional fossil plants.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University of California at Berkeley found evidence in data collected from 176 thriving plant species that fossil plants can help scientists determine sources of carbon in the atmosphere hundreds of millions of years ago.
Heartening news rang forth from the renewable energy sector this week as a UN-backed study reported that the building of new renewable energy plants has officially overtaken fossil fuel plants in Europe and the US. We also took a look at two brand new types of power plants -- the world's first hydrogen-driven power plant in Italy and the first hybrid coal-solar power plant in Colorado.
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Neither solar nor wind power is competitive on its own with electricity from fossil fuel plants.
Neither kind of renewable energy is competitive on its own with electricity from fossil fuel plants.
There are also direct rivals to new nuclear plants, such as fossil-fuel plants with carbon sequestration that can provide baseload power.
The demand for gas in power gen is increasing (coal to gas switching has been significant, and most new fossil power plants will be gas-fired).
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Legge notes that newer fossil fuel plants use the heat that was once wasted to turn an extra steam turbine, a process known as combined cycle.
First, all of these technologies are becoming less expensive each year with every prospect that one day they will be fully competitive on their own with existing fossil fuel plants or new natural gas plants.
Costs not captured include electrical grid upgrade, connectivity of renewables and buffering of their intermittency by rapid cycling of fossil fuel plants as presently practiced in this country, and non-carbon-tax externalities such as pollution and health care costs associated with energy sources, especially for coal.
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It runs 73 fossil and hydro plants along with six nuclear reactors at three sites.
It runs 73 fossil and hydro plants along with 6 nuclear reactors at three sites.
Because the wind blows inconsistently, power companies would have to turn fossil-fuel plants on when windmills fall still.
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Ironically, Germany, once a net power exporter, now imports electricity from French nuclear facilities and fossil-powered plants in neighboring countries.
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Traditionally energy managers relied on extra fossil fuel generating plants to ramp up and down as necessary to meet these needs.
Turning fossil-fuel plants on and off adds inefficiencies, producing carbon emissions just to heat up boilers before energy production can begin.
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Nuclear energy's best hope lies in carbon pricing, which forces fossil-fuel plants to pay for the environmental cost of the carbon they generate.
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Some of these developers are established engineering and construction firms in the power plant business, or they are owners of fossil fuel power plants.
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Ministers are trying to make planning rules more nuclear-friendly, and hope that tighter carbon-emission limits will help nuclear energy shine by comparison with fossil-fuel plants.
Higher as in 1, 200 degrees Celsius, which would heat air hot enough to run a high efficiency turbine like those used in fossil fuel power plants.
Many existing fossil-fuel plants will shut down in the next decade, and despite the drive for renewables and nuclear power, much of the replacement capacity will be fossil-fired.
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And they argue that simplistic comparisons with other electricity sources are unfair: fossil-fuel plants pay too little for their planet-warming carbon emissions, while renewables benefit from generous subsidies.
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Fossil-fuel plants also operate less efficiently at less than full power, so reducing demand for their power, without eliminating it, can offset carbon savings, according to the researchers.
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The bill also sets rules for building more natural-gas storage (as imports replace dwindling domestic supplies) and for developing technology to capture and sequester carbon emissions from fossil-fuel plants.
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As is true in most nations, nuclear operators are required to report more problems to authorities than operators of conventional, fossil-fuel plants, so there is more detail on even minor occurrences.
For solar energy, according to the report, the near-term goal is for solar electricity to be competitive with retail electricity rates, with a long-term goal to compete with central fossil fuel power plants.
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An even bigger threat looms in China and India, which are pushing to receive credits for carbon capture, which strips CO2 from the output of fossil fuel electric plants and traps it underground.
Shuttering even one U.S. nuclear power plant could unleash massive carbon emissions if fossil-fuel plants were used to make up the lost power, according to a new study released this weekend by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
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Energy leaders and experts recognize that as long as producing carbon pollution carries no cost, traditional plants that use fossil fuels will be more cost-effective than plants that use nuclear fuel.
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