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Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

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Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#171

Post by Schroedingersat »

dv_dt wrote: post #145
ncmncm wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy delivered by a solar panel is overwhelmingly more than needed to make it. The gain is enormous. There is simply no contest. Consider that makers of solar panels, and of the materials that go into them, get no break on their power bills. Each and every kWh that goes into making the panel is paid for, and necessarily has its cost folded into the price of the panel. Otherwise they would be paying power out of…

One could look for more direct sources, but the summary is that energy payback happens in 1-4 years out of current 25 year "life". And that 25 years is typically a warranty to 80% of original capacity. Year 26 of operation is not a sudden drop. https://www.solarmelon.com/faqs/solar-panels-use-energy-manu...

Costs have dropped an order of magnitude since that study. Many of which scale with energy.

4 years is now a massive overestimate. Depending on how much you include (frames, inverter, grid tie in etc) 0.5-2 is more realistic.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#172

Post by jasec57322 »

ncmncm wrote: post #159
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the OP, by "just asking questions", is engaging in an enormous time imbalance. It's a standard tactic of skeptics. Ask a simple question. Takes only a minute or two. But the answer turns out to not be so simple, and requires much time in composing an answer. And of course the answer also invokes concepts, terms, models, research, etc that themselves are not simple, and so the questioner asks anoth…

Right, "just asking a simple question" where the answer is easily found is called trolling.

No post body was provided.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#173

Post by jasec57322 »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #56
gnramires wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please have a look here: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ The evidence is clear and uncontroversial (and has been for decades).

The problem is that the OP, by "just asking questions", is engaging in an enormous time imbalance. It's a standard tactic of skeptics. Ask a simple question. Takes only a minute or two. But the answer turns out to not be so simple, and requires much time in composing an answer. And of course the answer also invokes concepts, terms, models, research, etc that themselves are not simple, and so the questioner asks anoth…

Have you given consideration to what you have written? You slyly abuse the English language by referring to me as a skeptic, yet then you proceed to brandish me as malicious.

If the answers are '[so easily googled]', why haven't you provided any reference, or better still answered the questions posed?; (instead making yourself a considerable effort to publicly slander me as a timewaster, whilst my posts are censored).

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#174

Post by kbenson »

WalterBright wrote: post #168
kbenson wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody saves money in Scrooge McDuck cash vaults. Why do I feel like you're reading half my comments and responding to that? > The majority of people do invest in the stock market. You're right. A slight majority, at less than 60%, based on sourced I found. Is that where we're at now? As long as you're part of that almost 60% then it's all good? > brokers like Robinhood have made it easy for anyone with a phone to…

> Expecting everyone to be able to benefit equally from stock market gains is ridiculous That's your strawman. > many people don't have enough extra income And yet people find the income to buy lottery tickets, go to the movies, go to the bar, etc. Investing does mean giving up some of this spending. > Someone that can only afford $100 a month to invest will see far less benefit Of course. But they are also seeing fa…

> That's your strawman.

If it's a strawman than your original statement was a non-sequitur, as I cover below.

> Of course. But they are also seeing far more benefit than not investing.

I believe your statement was that people can invest in the stock of these companies that would theoretically be getting most the profit to get "your share" of the profits, as opposed to it being slurped up by the wealthy.

This isn't about benefiting in some small way, it's about the benefit not ending up disproportionately in the hands of those that already have it. That was the context in which your statement of how you can just buy stock to get your share was made, because that's what this thread of the conversation was about.

> Remember that Gamestop stock craze a year ago? Many people playing that game were very low income people, including kids. Somehow they did have money to invest, when they thought it was worthwhile.

You mean the bunches of young people that took out loans to invest, or took their saving from living at home with their parents that they could have used to actually become independent? Is that what we're encouraging now? Because that was my take on that situation. A bunch of desperate people taking a risky gamble that happened to pay off, at least for some.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#176

Post by nine_k »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #100
mrep wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article mentions "reserves" 5 times and cost/price not once. Same type of articles were written about peak oil and then the price of oil went up and magically reserves grew as it be came profitable to find and extract new sources of oil.

That's because reserves are what matters. I don't care if there's billions of tons of lithium at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, nobody's ever going to go get it because it's too dangerous, difficult, and expensive. The same thing with space mining. Nobody's going to go mine asteroids because it's stupidly expensive. For all intents and purposes, if we can't get to it, it doesn't exist. And let's not forget about…

Not at all. If there were billions of dollars worth of whatever on the bottom of the Mariana trench, people would build advanced technology to extract these billions, without any further incentives than the market demand.

A comparable case in point: commercial space launch companies. Arguably, commercial large-scale aviation, too.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#178

Post by clairity »

pfdietz wrote: post #134
clairity wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

storage (and grid stability in general) is always the crucial achilles heel to renewables and it's always handwaved away with fantastical arguments positioned squarely against nuclear (here, springing up a whole global hydrogen economy out of nowhere). it's frustrating to see so much needless internecine fighting when nuclear plus renewables is the most viable answer we have right now to a fossil fuel free future. we…

The phrase "Achilles Heel" implies it's a fatal, unsolvable problem. But the cost of dealing with intermittency of renewables is looking like it's not bad, especially if one takes into account all the ways it could be dealt with (like thermal/cold storage out at the edge of the grid.)

“could” being the operative word. so much could happen, but what’s currently realistic is more sobering. currently, we have no way of realistically storing the magnitude of grid-stabilizing power required by intermittent renewables. even all the car batteries in the world are not anywhere close to enough, and that’s after 2+ decades of mining and manufacturing. pumped hydro is similarly limited. molten salt storage? decades. kinetics? decades.

but no one is saying we stop renewables. what we need to be saying is that we resume nuclear (primarily a mediopolitical problem) and do away with coal as fast as possible while we sort the storage issue out over the coming decades.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#179

Post by pfdietz »

clairity wrote: post #178
pfdietz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "Achilles Heel" implies it's a fatal, unsolvable problem. But the cost of dealing with intermittency of renewables is looking like it's not bad, especially if one takes into account all the ways it could be dealt with (like thermal/cold storage out at the edge of the grid.)

“could” being the operative word. so much could happen, but what’s currently realistic is more sobering. currently, we have no way of realistically storing the magnitude of grid-stabilizing power required by intermittent renewables. even all the car batteries in the world are not anywhere close to enough, and that’s after 2+ decades of mining and manufacturing. pumped hydro is similarly limited. molten salt storage?…

At some point caution becomes excessive and obstructive, dismissing a possibility you don't like until after it's been rolled out and solved the problem. A reasonable assessment should look at the technologies and judge how likely they are to work.

All the technologies are now subject to ever-increasing economic incentive to make them work. There are trillions of dollars riding on this. The world could spend a quadrillion dollars on energy over the next century. It doesn't get much bigger than that.

If there is anything retarding any of these technologies, it's competition from others. In the end, you'll see most of them failing to come out on top. But that will just be a sign there were better options, not a sign that these failures couldn't have also done the job.

Molten salt storage, btw, isn't IMO terribly reasonable; there are much cheaper media in which to store heat, like sand.

Re: Rapid Green Energy Transition Will Likely Result in Trillions of Net Savings

#180

Post by 01100011 »

pfdietz wrote: post #126
01100011 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe it? Solar+wind has had several notable failures so far when overcast skies combined with windless conditions. Hydro probably helps to a great degree though.

Rare dark/calm periods can be countered by storage technologies other than batteries. These technologies typically have lower efficiency than batteries, but that doesn't matter when they're only rarely called on. For these technologies, low per-energy-stored capital cost is much more important than high efficiency. As an example: hydrogen can be stored in solution-mined salt caverns for as little as $1/kWh of storage…

Context my friend. Read what OP and I are talking about and note how your post has nothing to do with it.

We're certainly not discussing things which are currently in the realm of unrealized dreams.

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