Live data from Hacker News

Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

climatechangenews.com

111–120 of 256 posts

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#111
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India wants 8% domestic production, and the US has a cry. What a bully. How does the WTO enforce that sort of ruling? India has The Bomb.

Because 8% of India is huge - that would mean India has a functioning solar energy tech sector - perhaps one that might be able to compete worldwide

8% of India is bigger than many entire countries. If India can export this and compete world wide, that's enormous.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#112
Bit of a clickbait title, the article mentions only one case where solar was traded at a lower price than coal, which is still not lower than coal's average price. For a better comparison we should include the cost of manufacturing panels vs building coal plants and the money spent on r&d and pr. Also, afaik solar panels are not exactly eco friendly. I believe it is up to personal taste which power lobby agenda one buys in, for one, I see the most value in fission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#113
Now that would be amazing in the USA if they could stop blowing up mountains and polluting the entire area, or dig filthy toxic mines just to extract coal, which is a horrible, horrible job for any human being (who will resist changing their job until the early day they die).

Too bad there is no "sexy" equivalent like a Tesla to make USA change from coal to solar/wind.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As best I can tell India's government is currently spending billions of dollars on solar. Maybe it will some day not be subsidy based. But as best I can tell it currently is. In fact the government appears to be spending one hundred billion dollars on solar in the next six years. By 2022. Furthermore, "The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy provides 70 percent subsidy on the installation cost of a solar photovoltai…

Why is this guy getting downvoted? There are multiple people saying "sounds too good to be true, but it isn't. Solar is great because I said so!". This guy provides evidence to support that it is not true and gets downvoted? Wut? For the umptieth time HN hears only what it wants to hear.

Indeed. The HN hive mind is strong. Post oatmeal commentary about favorite subjects and receive up votes.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#115
post #79

This is called Swanson's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law "The future is solar" isn't some hippy fantasy, it's a sincere market projection. Apparently, a robust, distributed, decentralized, sustainable power grid is unbelievably the actual long-term direction of free-market forces.

There is some other interesting economics at play. Solar is more suitable for local, small scale production for a few reasons including relative costs and the way those costs are distributed (capital cost vs variable cost). That in itself is interesting for all sorts of reasons, many of them applying to countries like India with infrastructure difficulties. About 7 years ago I visited Cow Bay, north of Cairns, Austra…

Can't the same be said for local nuclear?

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did. We do.

> We did. We do. What a completely useless response. Why even bother commenting? Four words? Since you can't be bothered to come up with a source, see pages 3-10 of the following document from the Congressional Budget Office. [1] Renewables get the large majority of the cash, and nuclear isn't even close. [1]: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/...

You're ruining the narrative.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#117
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India can develop its solar energy sector by itself. Until the US sues them and the WTO rules against them. http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-india-solar-idINKCN0QV2FD2...

India wants 8% domestic production, and the US has a cry. What a bully. How does the WTO enforce that sort of ruling? India has The Bomb.

But I think the US has their launch codes

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#118

Shameless plug: If you want to participate in India's progress towards bigger rooftop-solar, please consider joining http://www.oorjan.com . We believe we are doing something unique in leveraging banking and financial relationships to productize solar deployments. And looking for great devs right now - esp frontend :-)

pretty cool. I dont know if you applied for YC this time, but I encourage you to do this for the next batch. Contact me if you need any gyaan.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#119
"Solar energy prices hit a new record low in January with the auction of 420 megawatts in Rajasthan at 4.34 rupees a kilowatt-hour. In comparison coal tariffs range between 3-5 rupees/kWh."

So the headline here is, as is usually the case with articles in this space, misleading at best. It's slightly cheaper than the highest-end coal, but dramatically more expensive - nearly 1.5X more - than the lower end. Overall, it's still more expensive, and that doesn't include the cost of batteries to deal with the fact that the sun sets each day.

To be sure, advances are being made in this space. But this headline is nothing more than clickbait.

Re: Solar is now cheaper than some coal, says India energy minister

#120
post #70
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best location for covering a large area of land for purposes of solar energy would arguably be a desert. "90% of the world’s population lives within range of a desert and could be supplied with solar electricity from there", says this article, which also shows you how much needs to be covered to supply the entire globe in theory: http://cleantechnica.com/2009/06/22/half-a-trillion-dollars-...

No it's not. Solar panels must be free from dust to remain efficient, meaning you have to clean them, frequently, with water...

There are patents regarding ultrasonic cleaning of panels[1]. Not sure about actual products yet.

[1]: http://www.google.com/patents/US20120285516

Post reply on HN