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

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#281

Post by melenaboija » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:00 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…

Maybe they should (I have no idea if they are already doing so) invest in renewables

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#282

Post by tuatoru » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

TomWhitwell wrote: post #31

bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

Traditional power stations do exactly this - being closed for maintenance or running on low output for days, weeks or months even the interconnector cables between UK and European power suppliers have failed for months at a time. BUT yes, there's no equivalent of unexpected low wind and/or low solar for days or weeks.

The equivalent is a detached turbine blade, or sudden failure of cooling water pipes/intakes/pumps. Unexpected failures happen all the time.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#283

Post by wait_a_minute » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:01 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…

Saudi Arabia sees the writing on the wall and that is why they are investing heavily into renewables. They're aiming to inject some $30 billion into renewables over the next five years. They're also looking to diversify into other businesses besides renewables.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#284

Post by ehnto » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:02 AM UTC

arjun-menon wrote: post #235

discordance wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

The quote is actually likely from a member of Dubai Royal Family. An interesting fact here is that the UAE will never become poor . The UAE has saved up over 1.3 million USD dollars per citizen [a]. And this is just the government’s savings. Obviously, there’s immense private wealth on top of that as well. Even if with investment returns as low as 4% per year drawn out, that would translate to $52,000 per citizen . T…

I wouldn't so boldly claim they won't go poor, you trust in good management and no internal misfortune or subterfuge. Though their savings buy them considerable time to figure out an economic path forward, the loss of their profit center will surely affect the weight of their currency and political influence.

Oil won't go away of course, once the huge capital investment no longer makes sense it will become less abundant as fewer companies will be extracting and refining it. So they could see profits from oil as a niche resource in a post oil world.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#285

Post by mooreds » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #271

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…

> But, do we really have a plan for the consequences, not only in Saudi Arabia but also every other nation that's dependent on oil? Hint: we do not. That's kind of sad. A long time ago (just before the GFC) I looked at trends in climate change (Arctic sea ice specifically, but that's just a canary), demography, China's GDP, and things like PV/Wind learning curves, and said to myself: "things will get interesting in 2…

If geopolitics + trends is interesting to you, I highly recommend "Disunited Nations": https://zeihan.com/disunited-nations/

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#286

Post by SubiculumCode » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:10 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…

A whole lot of sun in Saudi Arabia....means a whole lot of energy to use.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#287

Post by nl » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:11 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…

> Nobody generates more than 20% of their electricity from solar. Denmark is the only country that generates over 30% of its power from wind, and Germany is the 3rd highest at 24.7% [2]. By comparison plenty of countries generate more than 30% of their electricity from nuclear power

This is an extremely odd comparison. No one is proposing a completely solar generation strategy - it's renewables vs whatever.

Plenty of countries generate more than 30% of their electricity from renewables.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#288

Post by andrepd » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #182

dsr_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The House of Saud has a plan. It isn't going quite as well as they had hoped, but it's going. Aramco was IPO'd. They wanted a trillion dollar valuation, and didn't get it. The next step is to sell that stock before the oil market collapses, preferably leaving themselves with a lot of cash and a minority stake in a much smaller company. Cash is going into technology stocks, venture funds, and international real estate…

Just to preempt the other obvious reply (Okay - so that's good for the House of Saud but what about the rest of the country?). If they're wise and invest that money into education they could just convert their current rather highly skilled resource economy into an economy focused on service, finances or defense.

The house of Saud crucifies dissidents and murders journalists with a bonesaw. What makes you think they would do what you're saying?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#289

Post by tachyonbeam » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:16 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…

It's going to be both. Tesla is working hard on mass-producing more affordable batteries. At the level of individuals it's already worthwhile. For 20K you can have enough Powerwall batteries to power your home when the sun isn't shining. 20K isn't that much on a 300-500K house. Competition will come and the price will come down more.

Couple that with automated buying/selling of renewable power at different times of the day, more efficient home insulation and... I'd say we're nearly there.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#290

Post by tuatoru » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #140

bregma wrote: post #12

The article says the world relies on fossil fuel for energy because it's cheaper. That's true. It doesn't mention that the world relies on it because it's reliable. It doesn't disappear for 6 months of the year, or stop producing for 3 out of 5 days or during peak demand periods. Make renewables cheaper and more reliable and they will replace fossil fuels in a snap. Cheaper is not enough if it doesn't do the job.

To make wind and solar power more reliable, you need to stop earth rotation or manipulate the climate to produce continuous sunlight and/or wind. That’s simply impossible. The only reliable renewable enery is hydropower and maybe geothermal power.

Take some advice from someone who has been there and done that, and suffered for it: -

Cure yourself of this tendency to jump to extremes. Your relationships and your career will benefit from pausing and moderating what you say.

To the content of your comment: -

There is a sizable menu of options to make wind and solar more reliable. Two technologies with nearly a century of history behind them are pumped hydro and CAES (compressed air energy storage).

Batteries have been technologically feasible for decades, and are on the cusp of economic feasibility (that is: being cheaper than the alternatives), thanks to the manufacturing learning curve that the OP makes so much of.

Better grid interconnections also help a lot and probably have an even more illustrious history than pumped hydro and CAES. Demand management (asking large users, e.g. pulp and paper mills to pause for a while), is also a venerable technique.

It is possible to use surplus power to make fuels to burn when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. This is still in its infancy only because we have never before had periods when electricity had a negative price.

These are just the things that sprang to my mind without thinking about it. There are others.