Now, Poland 🇵🇱 is running quite relaxed at 94 GBP/MWh and... 679 gCO2eq/kWh...
Hard to argue that coal still is not the cheapest fuel with rather stable prices, while gas is simply highly volatile, and right now it's very expensive.
This completely contradicts the LCOE estimates published by Lazard etc who present coal as 2x more expensive than gas. Of course, if you cherry-pick data during cheap gas period you can get that result...
Of course, coal has massive *external* costs, namely pollution, waste, CO2, that are not captured in the spot price.
Meanwhile France 🇫🇷 has the same 130 EUR/MWh price as Germany 🇩🇪 but 7x (seven times) lower emissions - it burns no coal and barely any gas. It's nuclear fleet is on the other hand running at 70% capacity right now:
@kravietz It actually made BBC News that we Brits recently had to fire up a coal plant to feed 3% of our energy for a few days. I'm glad that sort of event is considered newsworthy.
@kravietz Could you share resource? :)
Sure:
For prices https://www.epexspot.com/en/market-data
For CO2 intensity https://www.electricitymap.org/map
Unfortunately, a bunch of snake-oil salesmen are trying to sell us the idea of environmentalism instead of providing solutions to the power needs around the world and a bunch of us are buying it because a fantasy of magic boxes that can defy the laws of thermodynamics on a macro scale will always be more attractive than the reality that you're always choosing between a bunch of bad options.
100% agreed about the lack of fact-based approach to energy generation technologies.
As for hydro, it's clearly one of the cleanest in terms of CO2 and other operational emissions, as seen in Norway for example.
Primary disadvantage is geography - small, flat or densely populated countries are a no-go for hydro unfortunately.
I've been considering air-to-air heat pump (basically, AC that can both cool and heat) for my home. Still in the process of considering due to rather significant construction and financial impact :)
Meanwhile, United Kingdom 🇬🇧 CO2 emissions is around 300 gCO2eq/kWh and the baseload price is at 279.94 GBP/MWh - but overnight it reached 800 GBP! The primary difference seems to be larger share of fossil gas, as UK has closed most (all?) of its coal power plants.
Energy prices from www.epexspot.com
CO2 intensitty from www.electricitymap.org