http://blog.maxdunn.com/articles/2009/02/26/coal-tax-needed en-us 40 Max Dunn's Blog <p>I just went to an interesting talk about <a href="http://www.maxdunn.com/ed_parc_distributed_solar_generation">distributed solar </a>and found out that prices of solar PV panels are dropping dramatically. Soon, PV will be about $4 per watt installed (in large installations) which works out to about <a href="http://www.solarbuzz.com/SolarIndices.htm">$0.17 per kWh</a>. <br /><br />By comparison, coal-fired electricity sells for about $0.05 per kWh. This includes about $0.02 for the coal itself (<a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html">$2.15 per MMBtu</a> and <a href="http://www.aep.com/citizenship/crreport/energy/generation.aspx">1 <span class="caps">MMBTU</span> produces about 100 kWh</a>) and $0.03 for all other expenses.<br /><br />Adding in a $30 per ton <span class="caps">CO2</span> tax would add about $0.03 per kWh to this price, (coal produces about<a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric"> 2 lbs of <span class="caps">CO2</span> per kWh</a>) for a total of $0.08 per kWh. <br /><br />So even with a <span class="caps">CO2</span> tax, coal electricity will still be half the cost of PV.<br /><br />Therefore, for coal electricity to cost about the same as PV electricity, <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">a tax of 400% </span>would need to be added to coal!<br /><br /></p> Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:00:00 -0800 urn:uuid:e4984da4-5cab-4b58-87d2-30cd1a26a103 Max Dunn http://blog.maxdunn.com/articles/2009/02/26/coal-tax-needed Global Warming Sustainable Energy