Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#191

Post by jhallenworld » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

You know what's amazing? Farmers in rural Pakistan choosing to prefer solar to irrigate their crops (panels + VFD/inverter + 10 HP 3-phase motor):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfNgF0WTeCM

Or grinding wheat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G2evJOiU9I

The comments in these video are all about how much does it cost, what is your contact number, etc. Clearly this is a sea-change.

Also amazing that they all have cell phones :-)

The old system included 80+ year old hand-started diesel engines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZuqT7dgM08

These are very cool, but solar requires less man-power.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#192

Post by xyzzyz » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:01 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #156

xyzzyz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pumped storage is great, but it's simply not viable at a large scale. There are very few places where natural landscape allows it, and making more artificial ones would require flooding vast areas. Considering how difficult it often is to build solar plants on deserts (e.g. consider Ivanpah solar plant, which almost did not get build due to its impact on habitat of desert tortoises, which ended up getting relocated a…

Existing hydro lakes can act as storage (within the constraints of how much inflow there is and minimum outflow rates). Decrease lake outflow when solar and wind are producing power. Increase lake outflow when they are not. https://www.hydro.org/waterpower/why-hydro/available/

Your link says that at best we could double our current hydro generation capacity, which supports my point: it's simply too little for our storage needs, and if we electrify more of our economy (i.e. use it to replace heat and transport for which we use a lot of fossils now), it will be even less. It might still be worth doing, but is far from solving the storage problem: it just has significant limits on its potential scale.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#193

Post by bawolff » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:02 AM UTC

_carbyau_ wrote: post #187

The issue for me is that it doesn't matter how cheap they are. Australian government approach is largely to subsidize homeowners to put solar panels on their roof. (They do do other things too! But billions in home owner subsidies...) The main incentive of course is they then have cheaper power bills for not much outlay. If you rent, nearly nothing. You'd have to have a generous landlord or luck out on a house someon…

There's lots of people in the world with lots of different situations. If you only fund things that benefit every single person equally, you won't fund anything, because there are no initiaves that benefit every single member of society equally.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#194

Post by mb7733 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

_carbyau_ wrote: post #187

The issue for me is that it doesn't matter how cheap they are. Australian government approach is largely to subsidize homeowners to put solar panels on their roof. (They do do other things too! But billions in home owner subsidies...) The main incentive of course is they then have cheaper power bills for not much outlay. If you rent, nearly nothing. You'd have to have a generous landlord or luck out on a house someon…

Wouldn't landlords have the same incentive? By lowering the cost of utilities for their rental property they can increase the share of rent they keep as profit (in the case that utilities are included in rent) or charge more rent, based on the fact that the property is more desirable with the cheaper utilities / better environmental footprint.

Renewables are nothing new here. The same incentives encourage landlords to make properties generally energy efficient and desirable.

Don't get me wrong, I know the realities of rental housing. Many landlords do not give a shit, especially in markets without much housing. But as a general rule, the incentives are there, and eventually will have a large impact on the rental market. If most properties are solar powered, a rental that is not will have come with a discount.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#195

Post by munk-a » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

We don't - but society didn't feel obligated to carry the ferriers when the car eclipsed the horse and we (again, abstract society) have generally been pretty okay with not specifically planning for those disenfranchised populations. This is brutal and it's capitalism - if you're a staunch libretarian you probably don't mind that those who didn't adapt are outed as losers but... these sorts of technological revolutions have a lot of spare efficiency that's brought along with them. That spare efficiency can be taxed and used to help fund education and small business loans to try and preserve prosperity.

When it comes to the international scene I think it's pretty clear that the "haves" coming will have strong reasons to make sure that the "have-nots" aren't devolving into anarchy since that causes global problems. Whether they act intelligently isn't something I can comment on - but there are clear benefits to everyone involved.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#196

Post by discordance » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel" - Saeed Al Maktoum

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#197

Post by Cacti » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

I mean, fossil fuels still have their uses even in a world of plenty of renewable energy: tanks, planes, etc. will still need oil, and the strategic importance of ensuring an oil supply will still be hugely relevant to major powers for that reason, and they will in turn have an interest in supporting a stable Saudi Arabia.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#198

Post by AmericanChopper » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:07 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

Why would us HN readers (or perhaps you just meant is Americans?) need to have a plan for what happens to KSA if oil exports drop? They have their own plan for that, which is why they’ve invested so much into diversifying their economy.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#199

Post by integer42 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #130

eldaisfish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now renewables are cheaper. Yes, provided you ignore the cost of balancing an increasingly volatile grid, a volatility that is created by renewables. Also provided you ignore the cost to provide energy when said renewables aren't generating any. Claims to back up your statment, such as from Lazard, are horribly flawed because they use the metric of LCOE - levelised cost of energy - to claim that renewable energy is…

It's sad to see people downvote correct information. For context, the US consumes ~12TWh of electricity daily, so 500 GWh per hour. Global lithium ion battery production is around 300 GWh per year. While it's true this is projected to rise exponentially, the amount dedicated to storage is minuscule compared to the scale required to fulfill even one hour of energy storage [1]. This has prompted people to propose more…

Nuclears not some secret unexplored concept at this point. If it were competitive it would be competing. Its costs are too high, not due to regulations due to the sheer amount of resources involved in mining, refining, and operating. Not to mention initial construction.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#200

Post by ashleysmithgpu » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #179

I hate the argument that we’re just waiting for batteries now. I think if we had variable pricing that matched the availability of renewables, consumers would shift quickly. Say something like power costs .02/kWh while the sun is shining and .30 when it’s not. I’d charge my car at work. I’d put a timer on my dryer to turn on at 10am. They probably come out with a hot water heater that goes really hot during the day a…

Octopus energy in the UK has something like this https://twitter.com/energystatsuk would be great if you could push energy back to the grid and get paid for it too