Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is only a few decades of lithium left to be extracted by the way. Julian Simon's bet with Paul Ehrlich. You're not apparently aware of the amount of lithium worldwide, it's availability or its price trajectory. All minerals are significantly more abundant than people think, supply chain dynamics in mining do no equate to scarcity on earth, they relate to the economics of exploration and extraction and shippin…
Sure, we have plenty of minerals left ! But where and how much energy you need to extract them. In France we have lithium in Alsace, we could dig-it-up, but it's really not worth it energy wise and environmentally wise.
‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
31–40 of 339 posts
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure :) 500B€ (yes, half a trillion !) invested in wind turbines in Germany over 20 years. Check the result https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/DE , Germany is ~300g of CO²/kwh, France is 50g. Why ? Because when there is no wind, no sun, you need power. And then you're burning gaz or coal. So you "erase" all those 0CO² days. Also solar panel efficiency fades over time, you loose 50% of efficiency after a few decades.…
I thought it was because Germany shut down its nuclear power plants and ramped its coal generation up? [1] Germany poorly managing its power grid doesn’t imply that renewables aren’t economically rational; it implies Germany makes irrational national policy. France is primarily nuclear powered, as you point out with their low CO2 emission footprint (compare the generation mixes of both countries in ElectricityMap, I’…
How I look at it, had they spent the same amount of money in a different way, they could be carbon neutral. Climate change is an emergency but no one is acting like it.
It's one thing to say "we don't think it's worth the money" and another to spend the money but not achieve much, it's even worse IMO!
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
It still means power for air conditioning is ~free during the day when it's most needed, and you could pre-cool or pre-heat a bulk block with high heat capacity, then slowly use the heat/cold during the day. You can charge the electric cars when there's an excess, so in particular all the extra load from electric car charging that some people were so worried about is no longer a concern. If it gets cheap enough, you…
I think that you don't see how much land you actually need. Maybe in America there is plenty of space, but in Europe it's way more difficult. To replace one nuclear reactor, you need ~ half of Paris in solar panel. And still need energy "at night". Yes heating water, or cooling places are nice. But your trains ain't gonna work "only when there is sun". If you need backup at one moment, you need 0C0² backup and basica…
Fortunately space and land are cheap in the vast scheme of things.
There are very large amounts of "free" space, on rooftops, for example.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure :) 500B€ (yes, half a trillion !) invested in wind turbines in Germany over 20 years. Check the result https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/DE , Germany is ~300g of CO²/kwh, France is 50g. Why ? Because when there is no wind, no sun, you need power. And then you're burning gaz or coal. So you "erase" all those 0CO² days. Also solar panel efficiency fades over time, you loose 50% of efficiency after a few decades.…
I thought it was because Germany shut down its nuclear power plants and ramped its coal generation up? [1] Germany poorly managing its power grid doesn’t imply that renewables aren’t economically rational; it implies Germany makes irrational national policy. France is primarily nuclear powered, as you point out with their low CO2 emission footprint (compare the generation mixes of both countries in ElectricityMap, I’…
Wind turbine blade recycling is hard. I wouldn’t call it a proven technology. For example, all recycling options discussed in https://designedconscious.com/plastics-in-the-ocean/sustaina... are into inferior products (shorter glass fibers, ash, etc)
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is only a few decades of lithium left to be extracted by the way. Julian Simon's bet with Paul Ehrlich. You're not apparently aware of the amount of lithium worldwide, it's availability or its price trajectory. All minerals are significantly more abundant than people think, supply chain dynamics in mining do no equate to scarcity on earth, they relate to the economics of exploration and extraction and shippin…
Sure, we have plenty of minerals left ! But where and how much energy you need to extract them. In France we have lithium in Alsace, we could dig-it-up, but it's really not worth it energy wise and environmentally wise.
2010 blog article ?
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/09/16/how-long-will-the-lit...
> The scenario which assumes 73 Mt of lithium supply left, best policies (recycling, V2G, second-life) implemented and around 3 billion EVs on the road sees lithium fully depleted a few years beyond 2100. If the same policies and number of cars were matched with just 26 Mt of lithium, but recycling efforts would only grow slowly, battery manufacturers will close shops even before 2040.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fusion power you can install on your roof. Throw in a little storage and a decent climate and the power companies are on track to be thoroughly screwed.
You don't even need a decent climate. I live in Portland Oregon where it is cloudy for 9 months out of the year. In Portland, anything we generate beyond what we can use is fed back into the grid and given to us as a credit. We generate enough solar power credits that we don't pay anything for electricity year round other than a $12 monthly fee to be tied into the grid.
If they're crediting you for that energy at anything close to the retail electricity rate you're effectively getting a really generous subsidy. Because solar is so cheap but only produces electricity sometimes and at pretty much the same time everywhere in the region, the actual cost of electricity when your solar panels are producing heavily and feeding back into the grid is much, much lower than when they're not producing and you're a net consumer of grid power. Not only that, but it's a subsidy that's likely paid to wealthy people who can afford to install solar by poorer people who can't.
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought it was because Germany shut down its nuclear power plants and ramped its coal generation up? [1] Germany poorly managing its power grid doesn’t imply that renewables aren’t economically rational; it implies Germany makes irrational national policy. France is primarily nuclear powered, as you point out with their low CO2 emission footprint (compare the generation mixes of both countries in ElectricityMap, I’…
How I look at it, had they spent the same amount of money in a different way, they could be carbon neutral. Climate change is an emergency but no one is acting like it. It's one thing to say "we don't think it's worth the money" and another to spend the money but not achieve much, it's even worse IMO!
[deleted]
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#38[deleted. made mistake of commenting about cryptocurrency.]
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't even need a decent climate. I live in Portland Oregon where it is cloudy for 9 months out of the year. In Portland, anything we generate beyond what we can use is fed back into the grid and given to us as a credit. We generate enough solar power credits that we don't pay anything for electricity year round other than a $12 monthly fee to be tied into the grid.
If they're crediting you for that energy at anything close to the retail electricity rate you're effectively getting a really generous subsidy. Because solar is so cheap but only produces electricity sometimes and at pretty much the same time everywhere in the region, the actual cost of electricity when your solar panels are producing heavily and feeding back into the grid is much, much lower than when they're not pr…
These fallacies against net metering have been disproven. See the linked citation for details.
“Nevertheless, by the end of 2015, regulators in at least 10 states had conducted studies to develop methodologies to value distributed generation and net metering, while other states conducted less formal inquiries, ranging from direct rate design or net-metering policy changes to general education of decisionmakers and the public. And there is a degree of consensus. What do the commission-sponsored analyses show? A growing number show that net metering benefits all utility customers.”
https://www.brookings.edu/research/rooftop-solar-net-meterin...
Re: ‘Insanely cheap energy’: solar power continues to shock the world
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, we have plenty of minerals left ! But where and how much energy you need to extract them. In France we have lithium in Alsace, we could dig-it-up, but it's really not worth it energy wise and environmentally wise.
2010 blog article ? https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/09/16/how-long-will-the-lit... > The scenario which assumes 73 Mt of lithium supply left, best policies (recycling, V2G, second-life) implemented and around 3 billion EVs on the road sees lithium fully depleted a few years beyond 2100. If the same policies and number of cars were matched with just 26 Mt of lithium, but recycling efforts would only grow slowly, batt…
3billion cars. Exhausted at 2010 extraction rates by 2100 so in 80 years not 10, and for 3 billion cars, and that's from resource availability figures from 11 years ago.
Please, don't do this. You said 10 years. It's not exhausted in 10 years and a mining report from 2010 doesn't tell you anything in 2021. Mines are developed when economics justify it. Available lithium is huge.