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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?

#561

Post by ampdepolymerase »

XorNot wrote: post #413
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't anyone studying the Arabic states as UBI models? Incompatibility with western democracy? They are the closest to a large scale UBI system right now. Much bigger than those toy hundred people sort-of-UBI-but-not-really experiments.

Because they're not UBI, they're featherbedded kleptocracies. Everything keeps running provided they have the income to maintain the corruption and trickle down at every level to the officials who expect a varying scale of bribes and kickbacks. The system though ultimately is designed to ensure wealth flows upwards to the top, not to actually build a capitalist economy with a guaranteed minimum living standard.

But the effect is same. At the end of the day citizens survive on state welfare. Nobody said UBI is contingent on a corruption-free, western democracy.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#562

Post by pmiller2 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #547
pmiller2 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are missong that it's the large fossil fuel plants that need long distance transmission. Wind and solar (the ones getting cheaper) need storage, not transmission.

Fair enough, but then you're just substituting gigantic batteries, such as the Tesla Megapack, for the vast transmission networks necessary to make oil, coal, and nuclear practical. These are also not trivial problems to solve for a poor country, without assistance from more developed nations.

So, the question is: is there the political will in the developed world to help the developing world bootstrap renewable energy? History suggests not, unfortunately, but I would love to be wrong on this.

Edit: I forgot to mention, as well: lithium batteries eventually lose capacity and need to be replaced. So, storage is essentially an ongoing maintenance cost in this scenario. Google tells me that the Megapack costs ~$300/kW, all in, so, add that to the cost of your renewable energy. [0] Once you do that, if you're thinking short term, fossil fuels start looking really, really good.

Not to mention that lithium is a limited resource, and the mining of lithium is absolutely terrible for the local environment.

Google also tells me that the Tesla Megapack comes with a 15 year "energy retention" warranty. [1] So, you need to make this investment every 15 years. And, unless the prices of batteries go way down per kWh, that can add up real quick.

---

[0]: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/05/tesla-megapack-powerpac...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Megapack

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#563

Post by bregma »

WalterBright wrote: post #76
romanoderoma wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, unfortunately for our climate, fossil fuels are easy to store, even for decades (potentially forever, they don't decay) and transport and require no advanced technology to be useful, you simply need a way to set them on fire. There was a discussion few days ago about fossil fuels bootstrapping the industrial revolution(s), one of the theories is that without them we wouldn't be talking about renewable energy at…

That's why it's highly unlikely there was a civilization on the Earth before ours.

... unless that's what we're burning when we burn fossil fuels....

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#564

Post by Retric »

TuringTest wrote: post #560
Retric wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars, Heating, and cooking can be replaced with electricity just fine even if their not currently part of that 30%. Also, solar power overwhelmingly our largest energy source. It’s generally ignored in these calculations but farms for example are very dependent on sunlight.

Heating and cooling, OK. Cars require batteries, and there's not enough lithium to support as many electric cars as there exist combustion engine cars now. A breaktrhough will be needed, either in battery tech or shared transportation (either public transport, car-sharing, or generalized telecommuting).

There is plenty of lithium for EV’s. Existing mines are enough for ~1 billion cars, however raw lithium is currently well under 1% of the cost of a new Tesla so vastly more expensive mining options don’t really effect the economics much. The minimal amount of recycling would change dramatically as lithium prices increase.

PS: “battery grade” lithium is more expensive, but what changes isn’t the amount of lithium but removal of minor impurities.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#565

Post by fakedang »

ben_w wrote: post #528
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…

> imo, they'll never collapse Things can change surprisingly fast. My grandmother was born close to the peak of the British Empire, within a few years (plus or minus) of Irish independence; by the time my older brother was born the Empire was reduced to about 5 million people outside the UK, and by the time I was born the UK had humiliated itself by managing to lose a naval dispute with Iceland despite the entire pop…

Again, read my last line. The SWF is responsible for all the subsidies in the UAE, and if they collapse, it would mean we have far bigger problems. The SWF invests in all major indices across all major markets, and even in multiple private equity firms (including my old firm, which was one of the biggest in the world). The collapse of $1.1T worth of investments would be the signal of a global collapse. Imagine if Blackrock or Vanguard declared themselves bankrupt one fine morning - that's what you're implying.

Also Norway would collapse too, since both the Norwegian and Abu Dhabi SWF have very similar investment profiles.

Last time I checked, the British Empire hadn't invested a dime into either the US or Chinese stock markets. Or even had a sovereign wealth fund for that matter.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#566

Post by nickbauman »

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 reached their Hubbert curve apotheosis probably in the 80's (their proven reserve is a state secret). They've been desperately trying to handle this fallout ever since.

Russia, OTOH, is the real the mother of all petrostates. Any problem you might imagine facing Saudi is tiny compared to the impact on Russia. They've already suffered so much as a result of the oil crash in the late 90's by becoming a mafia state.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#567

Post by eldaisfish »

Reason077 wrote: post #478
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…

> "What is needed today for a low-carbon future is nuclear and hydro." Hydro is great if you have the terrain for it, but much of the world is not geographically suited for extensive hydro. Nuclear is extraordinarily expensive and often takes decades to plan and build. Renewables can be built far cheaper and far more quickly. On grids that still have gas & coal fired power stations, every GWh of electricity produced…

>Nuclear is extraordinarily expensive and often takes decades to plan and build.

That's not necessarily true as countries like China are building new nuclear reactors in 4-5 years. Remember that nuclear is one of the few industries that designs for the worst case scenario which is part of the high cost. The other component of the high cost is often policy and overzealous bureaucracy.

>On grids that still have gas & coal fired power stations, every GWh of electricity produced from renewables displaces a GWh that would otherwise be produced from fossil fuels.

This is not true. A kWh from a wind turbine is absolutely not equal to a kWh from a coal/gas/nuclear/hydro plant due to the fact that the capacity factor for a typical wind turbine is around 20-30%. A hydro plant often runs at > 80% capacity factor.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#568

Post by scottmcf »

fakedang wrote: post #506
Thlom wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

First of all, it's not slave labour that's employed in the construction industry or any of the other sectors. I think I can speak for this considering my relatives worked those "slave" jobs as you put it. The UAE had long been forced by the British and the Americans to abolish slavery before they gained their independence. This, unlike Saudi Arabia, where it was legal long after the 1970s. About the "slave" jobs, mos…

Don't they often take their passports and prevent them from leaving?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#569

Post by Geezus_42 »

sbeller wrote: post #222
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…

> In theory, naval propulsion is more amenable to electrification than aviation, but that'll be tricky to do economically; that is another area that petroleum could have a long useful life in. Over the last couple years / decades, ships went slower and slower on average as to save fuel (fuel became more expensive as well as environmental regulation on how much a ship may emit, which correlates to fuel intake). So som…

Couldn't you use the rocking of the boat as a means to generate electricity? Seems maybe easier than wind, which I can only imagine as putting some type of turbine on the deck, except in calm seas where you would need to make sure you had enough battery capacity.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#570

Post by rossdavidh »

an_opabinia wrote: post #270
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

Middle-income Americans - their innumeracy, their illiteracy, their armchair-quarterbacking, their habit of seeing the Other one-dimensionally, their racism, their dollars - have always been a greater threat to Saudi Arabia and other people of the world than the price of fucking oil.

My apologies if I seemed to be wishing ill tidings for Saudi Arabia. I have no wish for Saudi Arabia to see bad times ahead. However, I think every oil-dependent country is in for a rocky ride in the next decade, as renewables become the dominant energy source, and since Saudi Arabia is the world's leading oil producer, they came first to mind. Not something I want to happen at all, just something I think will happen, which we should prepare to mitigate. My apologies if it sounded otherwise.
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