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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?

#491

Post by tomp »

yourapostasy wrote: post #435
ehnto wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables as a utility power source won't stop our reliance on oil. Fossil fuels like coal and natural gas are on the chopping board, but oil still has considerable permeation through our lives and a very large conversion cost and social inertia to overcome yet. Plastics, shipping fuels, many manufacturing processes use oil during manufacturing but perhaps not in the final product. Vehicles are still decades away fr…

> Container shipping switching to nuclear would be a quick change once regulations are in place for one example. This comment sent me looking, and I didn't see anyone making any kind of move towards installing a regulatory environment that is conducive towards a "quick win" for nuclear-powered container ships. This Flexport article [1] was interesting, but didn't mention any such legislative moves afoot. This article…

In your research, did you find out that nuclear-powered ships are actually cheaper (i.e. combined cost of fuel, personnel & maintenance connected with the nuclear reactor)?

Because obviously the primary goal of the military isn't cost-saving, it's having subs & aircraft carriers that can stay sea-borne indefinitely. So they'd be using them even if they're actually (much) more expensive

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#492

Post by tomp »

495636483 wrote: post #466
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 do you think Saudi Arabia is slowly allowing women to participate? They need them in the workforce for an economically sustainable future. They know they are heading for crisis rapidly and investing hard to get out of there. However, they are ridiculously dependent on oil. Oil money is basically the whole country's sugar daddy (not for the slaves and foreign workers...). People don't really work there, they all j…

> Why do you think Saudi Arabia is slowly allowing women to participate? They need them in the workforce for an economically sustainable future.

Do they? Has doubling the work-force helped Western economies? I think that Elizabeth Warren & others have questioned that idea - i.e. that the wages were reduced to compensate for the increased labour supply - although even if not beneficial for individual families it could still be beneficial for the economy as a whole (and especially for the capitalist class).

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#493

Post by csomar »

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…

There will be no consequence for Saudi Arabia disintegrating. Most of the world (hint: their neighbors and their own population) will welcome it. S.A. has lots of lands and other resources (religious tourism is big, they are the center of the Islamic world). They are only poor because of their own mismanagement.

The Emirates will be largely fine since they have diversified a lot. They might need to cut a bit of spending but otherwise they'll keep as a wealthy nation. Qatar will also probably be fine. They have lots of money and built lots of infrastructure which they can open to the world.

Actually, I think post-oil, we'll finally have peace in the region. Nothing to fight over any more.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#494

Post by hannob »

pydry wrote: post #463
redisman wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a lot of money to invest and they could also export solar if they want to stay in the energy business. Lots of sunlight there.

Export to whom? Everybody else in the vicinity also has a lot of sunlight. Why wouldn't they make their own power at home and save on transmission costs?

To Europe. In the form of hydrogen, ammonia or other chemical energy storages.

Europe will need lots of those. It can very likely not be produced in Europe alone.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#495

Post by Thlom »

cik wrote: post #442
fakedang wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I came to share exactly this. The UAE is the most forward thinking, of any of the Gulf states. Economic planning literally spans 100 years and multiple scenarios. They're using oil wealth to actively invest in finance, tourism, technology, high-yield agri-tech, and medical research. They also have the most vibrant (by far) tech scene of the Arab world, and are working only to hyper-accelerate that.

If they are so rich and forward thinking, why do they use slave labor?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#496

Post by k_bx »

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…

> What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death?

As a Ukrainian, I’m very optimistic about the future of democracy in Russia that would have a chance once it stops being a big gas station. We then might see a better, open Russia, without military aggression and disinformation campaigns.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#497

Post by frobisher »

imtringued wrote: post #419
ehnto wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abund…

If they are well prepared then they will actually do better after the oil is gone. The resource curse results in countries focusing on a few narrow industries. Resource extraction is easy but it only benefits those who are directly employed by it. Usually governments don't make it easy for other types of businesses to flourish because they can entirely support themselves on resource extraction.

Indeed. That said, what will they diversify to? I wonder if it will be solar energy generation due to natural abundance. Barring that, it will have to be something like high tech, which itself will be dependent on importing talented labour. That will only happen with low tax rates, with Dubai acting as a hub for transient talent looking to save for a few years, then head off.

Meanwhile, given the local Emirati will form a small fraction of the economy, they may effectively act as rent seekers on income and corporate tax from the rest of the economy.

Will this be an ideal egalitarian society? Probably not, at least in terms of my values. But those seem like the underlying dynamics, for better or worse.

Of course, if diversification isn't competitive relative to the rest of the world, things will go the other way.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#498

Post by 3pt14159 »

wazoox wrote: post #488
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…

Wood didn't give way to coal that gave way to oil. This is a terrible fallacy (albeit very commmon, even Vaclav Smil fell into it in his "Oil" book). The world currently consumes more coal than it ever did. Wood consumption is also record high. We simply stacked up energy sources. Check this page: https://ourworldindata.org/energy So far, fossil fuels still represent about 85% of our energy consumption, and about 99%…

I agree on renewables and they are certainly part of the solution, but we can meet our energy without fossil fuels if we really leaned into nuclear the way the French did.

It's simply a matter of political will.

Musk looked at the regulatory tape around nuclear and said "I guess it has to be solar then" and I think that was a mistake. If we'd applied his economics of scale, and first principles thinking to nuclear we'd be far, far more along than we are right now and we'd probably have more medical isotopes to boot.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#499

Post by audunw »

sp332 wrote: post #233
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…

That water heater idea is interesting. You could put a thermostatic valve on the output that mixes in cold water so the output was always the same temp no matter what the inside is. Usually people turn the temp down to save money, but if you can heat it way up when energy is cheap, that might change completely.

What may be easier is to move the heating element to the top, and add a pump to move water to the top when heating.

Hot water will stay at the top of the tank, so that means you can use most of the hot water without a significant drop in temperature.

There's a company making tanks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Z4JCoPAGc

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#500

Post by pydry »

hannob wrote: post #494
pydry wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Export to whom? Everybody else in the vicinity also has a lot of sunlight. Why wouldn't they make their own power at home and save on transmission costs?

To Europe. In the form of hydrogen, ammonia or other chemical energy storages. Europe will need lots of those. It can very likely not be produced in Europe alone.

I don't see why not. Renewables already means periodic negative power prices for most countries that have them. They will likely use this electricity to make these chemicals closer to where they are needed. This is already happening with aluminum in, e.g. Germany.

Even if they don't, 1/3 of the countries in the world are drenched in sunlight. The competition will make margins on these industries pretty pitiful.

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