Too bad that low cost is invisible for the consumers. California has one of the most, if not the most, expensive electricity in spite of years of investment in renewables.
Why is this? Is there no competition?
[deleted]
Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
21–30 of 642 posts
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#22So fossil fuels, at least for power generation, is already obsolete. Fantastic! Since the power plant replacement cycle is much slower than for phones, it will take a while to propagate the shift, but it is already inevitable.
There's still the problem of what to do between 4pm and 8 am on a day without wind, which means we won't be able to shut down too many power plants until cheap energy storage exists.
True, that part is lagging behind, but it is also improving fast.
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Global energy grid?
You really want to be dependent on other countries for your vital infrastructure? Imagine if we go to war with china/russia, and they shut down energy exports to the US causing rolling blackouts everywhere.
Then get your electricity nationaly, or from france, or from germany, or from saudi arabia, or from australia, or from argentina.
The point of a global energy grid would be that there's always sun and wind somewhere on the planet and you would smooth out time-of-day differences in usage. The point is NOT to outsource your country's entire electricity production.
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#24This is the source they are using: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
Does lazard include subsidies in their numbers or not? I can't figure it out.
I'm having trouble making sense of the lazard report, but to me it seems that it does, and ourworldindata.org is using their numbers while claiming they are without subsidies.
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Global energy grid?
Running a power cable across the Pacific is going to be rife with expensive engineering problems, but sure, you could send electrons from Three Gorges to Google at some cost. I wouldn't call it cheaper, though.
In the spirit of "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." I wonder if shipping big piles of fully charged batteries around has any chance of being a practical power distribution method?
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#26Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#27This is the source they are using: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... Does lazard include subsidies in their numbers or not? I can't figure it out. I'm having trouble making sense of the lazard report, but to me it seems that it does, and ourworldindata.org is using their numbers while claiming they are without subsidies.
[deleted]
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#28Too bad that low cost is invisible for the consumers. California has one of the most, if not the most, expensive electricity in spite of years of investment in renewables.
I live in Finland next to a hydroelectric dam. Electricity is, at worst, like 200 bucks a month. More than half the cost is transport. The dam is less than 15km out. What a ripoff.
Privatizing the electric grid would make electricity cheaper, they said.
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this? Is there no competition?
California deregulated electricity and in the absence of regulations, electricity providers discovered that they could collude in reducing capacity until prices went nice and high, and make continuous windfall profits from then forward.
> California deregulated electricity
"Deregulated" is something of a misnomer here. They removed restrictions on prices and collusion, but did not remove the state-enforced monopolies that different electric providers have in different areas of the state. So they combined the worst aspects of deregulation with the worst aspects of regulation.
Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really want to be dependent on other countries for your vital infrastructure? Imagine if we go to war with china/russia, and they shut down energy exports to the US causing rolling blackouts everywhere.
Then get your electricity nationaly, or from france, or from germany, or from saudi arabia, or from australia, or from argentina. The point of a global energy grid would be that there's always sun and wind somewhere on the planet and you would smooth out time-of-day differences in usage. The point is NOT to outsource your country's entire electricity production.
> Then get your electricity nationaly, or from france, or from germany, or from saudi arabia, or from australia, or from argentina.
Ah yes, because the other countries will magically have the spare capacity (both in terms of generation and transmission)?
We already see this play out in Europe: nobody there wants to do anything about russia because they control the natural gas supply.
>The point is NOT to outsource your country's entire electricity production.
Maybe, but the effects are the same. If you can't produce enough electricity to make it through the night, that puts you in very vulurable position. Even if it doesn't completely shut down the country, it might cause enough unrest to topple the current administration (eg. if they're only leading in the polls by a few percentage points and there's an election in a few months).