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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?

#511

Post by djmips »

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%…

>back in the 18th century, but we were 600 millions and lived 35 years.

I'm not sure if this changes your point but many people lived to their 70s and 80s in the 18th century as they have for recorded history.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#512

Post by hef19898 »

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…

Saudi seems to be pushing solar and green hydrogen pretty aggrssively. I know that there are several intiatives ongoing in that direction. And having a lot of real estate pretty suitable for solar and green hydrogen, that seems like one alternative. Other countries might have bigger issues, so.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#513

Post by bregma »

MayeulC wrote: post #67
BurningFrog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well, this is technically true, and already being done today with gas and petroleum. Converting it back-and-forth to electricity isn't easy nor very efficient, though. Hydrogen is a bit easier, although still lossy. I'd say it's doable, and not as bad as it sounds, if you really have excess production. inb4 compressed air supertankers. That said, it will in most cases be less expensive to use it as close to the origi…

The most effective (relatively safe, relatively energy-dense, easy to handle) way to store energy is in a hydrogen-carbon bond. If only there was some way to transport that across oceans in large tankers....

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#514

Post by notsureaboutpg »

sshumaker wrote: post #381
bosswipe wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A lot of people mistakenly believe that Saudi influence is behind the spread of Wahabbism but Wahabbism/Salafism is actually a quite modern ideology which rejects the hierarchical notion of "trusted" scholars for the idea of people discerning rulings on their own.

Because of state intervention in religion across the Middle East, scholars who contradict the state often end up silenced. So the "approved" scholars are often not approved of by the people. Salafism allows them to continue practicing Islam without state influence.

If Saudi were officially supporting Sufi scholars it would make no difference to the Muslim world (some states in the Middle East do something similar and their effect on Islamic thought is miniscule as a result).

Most Muslims (even mainstream ones) are not fans of the kind of Sufism Westerners are fans of. Without Saudi influence Wahabbism would still be a reckoning force in the world today because it solves a political problem most Muslims still face and it reflects most Muslims' honest thoughts on the world today. I say this as a practicing Muslim.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#515

Post by znpy »

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…

> Even if with investment returns as low as 4%

That line of reasoning always make me smile.

That's like assuming that once you get a certain threshold of wealth, you can automatically assume you'll be fine forever.

And by the way, that "as low as 4%"... Most people throw percentages all around the table, easy like that... Seems funny.

Call me stupid, but the idea of a whole country being able to piggyback off all other countries seems unlikely to say the least.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#516

Post by znpy »

Thlom wrote: post #495
cik wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They get rich because they can exploit slavery, they are forward in a different direction than most people refer to when saying "forward".

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#517

Post by relaxing »

pmiller2 wrote: post #485
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per the article, renewables will be significantly cheaper than oil. Why would a poor country not purchase the cheaper option?

You tell me why poor countries wouldn’t invest in solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal. (Hint: you have to build the infrastructure first, and not all of these are even practical everywhere.) Hydrogen isn’t all that practical as a fuel, and biomass just puts CO2 back into the atmosphere. Can you think of a renewable source of energy that’s both attractive to poor and developing countries, and also practical? Oil is easy…

You’re massively underestimating the infrastructure needed to take oil and put it in the consumers’ hands.

Biomass puts CO2 back in the atmosphere, but at least it’s not increasing the total CO2 in the biosphere.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#518

Post by rat9988 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #498
wazoox wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The french did this and ended up with nuclear costing more than current renewable. That said, it has served them well for the last decades and will probably still serve well for a decade or two.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#519

Post by bregma »

alliao wrote: post #79
jes5199 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the past they were cheaper. Now renewables are cheaper. Right now, intermittent renewables actually drives up the cost of fossil fuels! Renewables do wacky things to the spot price of power - sometimes electricity is free or even has negative value, sometimes it's expensive. Ideally fossil fuel plants would only spin up when they could sell power at a profit, but they can't dispatch so quickly, so they end up sell…

isn't that the game plan for hydrogen powered vehicles? so they can build a plan to absorb all these excess from over provisioning at a lower rate to produce hydrogen for their fleet

Sure. Find some way to break up CO2 from the atmosphere and bond hydrogen to the carbons. It creates a relatively safe, easy-to-use hydrogen storage medium and it reduces greenhouse gases at the same time. The cars would just need to break the carbon-hydrogen bonds to release the energy once again, and the process is GHG-neutral.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#520

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

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…

SA has been dumping all their oil money on investments for a long time now. They know what's coming.
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