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Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

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Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#381

Post by sshumaker »

bosswipe wrote: post #180
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 powerful Saudi Arabia has not been a force for good in the world so I don't know why I'm supposed to worry about it.

Indeed. Can you imagine the alternate reality if the Saudi branch of Islam was something more like Sufism instead of Wahhabism, given the number of mosques the Saudis have funded all around the world with petrodollars?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#382

Post by quickthrower2 »

KuhlMensch wrote: post #353
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…

If you install your own panels, you can of course simply sell back to the electricity company. In South Australia, a few roof panels, gets you enough credits to essentially run the AC without needing to consider the power cost.

That depends, full AC draws 5kw for me, so you'd need probably a 10kw system to get coverage for most of the day, and that's a big one, I think requiring a 3 phase connection. I dare say unless you have a fortunate roof shape (all flat or pointing all the right way) you wont be able to fit that on either..

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#383

Post by fakedang »

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…

Rashid bin Saeed al Maktoum actually, his son. And yeah, member of the Dubai royal family.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#384

Post by fakedang »

sabalaba wrote: post #311
arjun-menon wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s not impossible (more like highly likely) for that trust to go the same way of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust. Administrative burden and corruption. Mismanagement. Exponential growth can’t go on forever. It’s interesting that UAE is doing the same thing that Nauru did except on a larger scale with petrochemicals instead of phosphate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Phosphate_Royalties_Trus...

I've worked with the UAE's SWF, and imo, they'll never collapse. Corruption is nonexistent nearly in the investment authorities, since they are highly regulated and treated essentially as defacto Western companies listed in the NYSE or something. If they collapse, we would have far bigger problems by that time, since they're invested heavily into the modern global economy. This is not oil wealth, but actual invested wealth.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#385

Post by [deleted] »

wp381640 wrote: post #366
nl wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, there are numerous very large scale project already underway to use existing hydro capacity as pumped hydro storage. Eg, Bath County Pump Storage is a 3GW plant[1] although ironically it is often filled using nuclear power because the hydro station can adapt better to rapid changes in demand. In the US there is 22GW total pump hydro storage already (compared to say 98GW total nuclear power capacity).…

add Snowy 2.0 in Australia - 2GW: https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/snowy-20/about/

[deleted]

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#386

Post by adrianN »

adamredwoods wrote: post #204
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…

For reference, list of large power plants and their output: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations The largest solar plant is at about 2000 MW and requires a lot of land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhadla_Solar_Park The largest wind farm is not being used as efficiently as it could: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu_Wind_Farm

Land area used for renewables always sounds like a lot, but it's not that much if you compare it to agriculture. For example, in Germany we use 2.4 million hectares for "energy crops". Just replacing those monocultures with solar panels would cover most of Germany's energy demand and leave some room for biodiversity under the panels.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#387

Post by newyankee »

xyzzyz wrote: post #343
nordsieck wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It means that countries which rely on fossil fuels for their economy, are going to see the same kind of crushing economic decline that, say, the UK coal industry has. > What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death? First, I think you have to segregate between different kinds of fossil fuels. Coal is the worst. From what I under…

> Tesla has shown quite readily that batteries are probably better than peaker plants for most cases. Where and how it shown that?

Australia and California.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#388

Post by wonnage »

ashtonkem wrote: post #373
mooreds wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, "The Accidental Superpower" is wondrous in scope and ideas. The "Absent Superpower", the sequel, is OK; had some interesting insights about shale and the coming removal of the USA from the world. But the first book is timeless. His Twitter feed is high signal as well: https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/

Increasingly, I wonder if the Absent Superpower is going to miss a lot of predictions due to the reduced importance of fossil fuels, which is the main driver of his narrative.

I would rate his series of books more historical fantasy than anything else.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#389

Post by manfredo »

wp381640 wrote: post #272
manfredo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's doing much better in terms of actually being used as a large portion of countries electricity generation, as I demonstrated above. But more importantly, the reality is that nuclear isn't competing against renewables it's competing against a fossil fuel grid that's supplemented by renewables. Germany, the poster child for renewables, still emits 10x the carbon dioxide per watt of electricity as France. Let me put…

Battery was and is never supposed to take up the entire storage load of a network - nobody is designing or forecasting future networks in that way. Batteries provide fast response Pumped hydro is what is being used on a lot of networks and in future network planning. Ironically old open cut mines are often perfect locations for them. This paper discusses an algorithm used to find pumped hydro sites - there is _a lot_…

Pumped hydroelectricity is geographically dependent - you need a valley or mountain that you can dam up to build pumped hydro. While it may be great for South Australia, the region examined in your linked paper, it's wrong to assume that this availability is uniform.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#390

Post by pmiller2 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #377
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…

Saudi needs to do one of two things before the oil runs out: 1) Diversify their economy 2) Build up enough sovereign wealth to maintain their citizens standard of living after the oil has run out. The first is very hard, because huge percentages of their population are completely disengaged from the economy. It's estimated that 30-40% of working age adults neither have a job, nor are looking for one. An unusually hig…

Oil is not running out in Saudi Arabia anytime soon. They have reserves underneath their desert land equal to over 200 years' worth of current consumption. [0]

What they need to do is stop pumping it, and soon, otherwise climate change will cook us all.

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[0]: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/saudi-arabia-oil/

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