Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#361

Post by hnaccount_rng » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

bena wrote: post #359

amarait wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

I think the overall point is that we will never get there. Renewables will never be cheap enough to fully replace fossil fuels, batteries will never be good enough. No matter what, as long as the cost of extracting and burning fossil fuels is less than the result of what gets produced by the consumption, someone will be doing it. It’s why crypto will never solve the energy issue. Why AI/GPT/LLM won’t either. Especial…

But that isn’t the case _today_. Unless you have existing facilities (which we do have and which gives fossils momentum) it’s strictly cheaper to build new renewables! The problem for renewables is that the p99.9 price is much higher than the p95 price. But finance will be solving that part.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#362

Post by ColonelBlimp » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

CrossVR wrote: post #223

HPsquared wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any country relying on international cables for electricity would need to build and maintain full local backup power capacity. The combined cost of cables + backup may be more than storage cost. (Of course there are many factors which affect all these costs)

Norway, Denmark and The Netherlands are all part of the European Union. Would you make the same claim if we were talking about US states? (With Texas being a special exception)

Norway is member of the European Economic Area, not of the European Union, together with Iceland and Liechtenstein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#363

Post by derektank » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

pshirshov wrote: post #308

passwordoops wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot being too concerned with maintaining environmental and air quality regulations. There's a reason Shanghai is known for really bad air quality. There's a reason the rate of GHG emissions are accelerating

> maintaining environmental and air quality regulations Yeah, that's the primary concern for the US, right. > There's a reason the rate of GHG emissions are accelerating If you wanted to say that they "produce solar panels with energy from fossils" bring your sources please.

The sarcasm seems unwarranted. The US has better air quality than any other country with over 50 million people and better air quality than the EU on average. Most of the countries above America on the list are either islands directly in the path of tradewinds, largely unpopulated, or the nordics. Now, a lot of this is simply the fact that Americans haven't embraced diesel and that America is a relatively low density country. But air quality is really quite good in most of the US. The Clean Air Act and other environmental legislation was very successful.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#364

Post by hnaccount_rng » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #229

jillesvangurp wrote: post #175

The article doesn't mention a technology that deserves some attention because it counters the biggest and most obvious deficiency in solar: the sun doesn't always shine. That technology is cables. Cables allow us to move energy over long distances. And with HVCD cables that can mean across continents, oceans, time zones, and climate regions. The nice things about cables is that they are currently being underutilized.…

There's geopolitical implications. Solar is long stability, short conflict. It's easy to cut undersea cables, it's easy for instability arriving to one the landlocked countries in the middle of transit. This creates systemic risks that are asymmetric with respect to offense and defense. Many would see this as an invitation to retreat from solar, but I view it as the opposite. Widespread solar will cause peace via the…

That was the idea behind Germany’s energy dependence on Russia. Let’s call that experiment not successful, shall we?

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#365

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:23 PM UTC

bena wrote: post #359

amarait wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

I think the overall point is that we will never get there. Renewables will never be cheap enough to fully replace fossil fuels, batteries will never be good enough. No matter what, as long as the cost of extracting and burning fossil fuels is less than the result of what gets produced by the consumption, someone will be doing it. It’s why crypto will never solve the energy issue. Why AI/GPT/LLM won’t either. Especial…

The price of LFP batteries in China is $35/kWh for cells, $52/kWh for fully integrated systems [1]. Roughly 1TW of solar is being deployed globally every year. We’re already there, it’s just a matter of pushing the pedal down harder. China destroys half a million barrels a day of global oil demand every year they build EVs at current output levels, which are still increasing.

Fossil fuels are already dead, it’s just time horizon. How fast we want to go is a function of how much fiat we want to shovel into PV solar and battery manufacturing.

[1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/watershed-moment-big-battery-sto...

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#366

Post by fastball » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #358

amarait wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

We can either pray and wait for a technological breakthrough that makes storage tech way cheaper than gas or we can just use taxes and subsidies to make it happen now. It's not so hard. Lavish subsidies were used to make nuclear power semi-sort-of-competitive even though it's way more expensive. The same thing could have been done with solar and wind but apparently we thought the best course of action was just to wai…

Or we can go full nuclear.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#367

Post by goda90 » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:34 PM UTC

amarait wrote: post #348

rel_ic wrote: post #347

Renewable energy is great, but we're not replacing fossil fuels with it, we're just adding more energy usage. And our energy usage is destroying the environment. Don't let these advancements in solar make you think things are getting better. We need to reduce fossil fuel usage, not just increase solar usage. https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/b3b696c0-226d-0137-f265-1d2...

What replaces fossil fuels is some kind of breakthrough in batteries. At the moment its getting better every year were currently at less than $100 per KWh which is crazy but needs to be improved for allowing more off the grid energy consumption

Better batteries are the road to replacing fossil fuels for transportation, but I feel like abundant nuclear energy is what we need to give a jump start to green steel, hydrogen, ammonia, etc, and electrifying bulk heating industrial processes.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#368

Post by fred_is_fred » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #184

jillesvangurp wrote: post #175

The article doesn't mention a technology that deserves some attention because it counters the biggest and most obvious deficiency in solar: the sun doesn't always shine. That technology is cables. Cables allow us to move energy over long distances. And with HVCD cables that can mean across continents, oceans, time zones, and climate regions. The nice things about cables is that they are currently being underutilized.…

Plausible alternatives to cables include ships full of synthetic diesel, ships full of iron, ships full of aluminum, or ships full of magnesium. Inside China HVDC cables are indeed carrying solar power across the continent, but the Netherlands have not managed to erect any yet. Cables provide efficient JIT power delivery, but they're vulnerable to precision-guided missiles, which Ukrainians are 3-D printing in their…

Ukranians are 3d printing millions of missiles in their basements?

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#369

Post by lentil_soup » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #199

ErigmolCt wrote: post #132

While the US is busy trying to revive the oil-soaked 20th century, places like Namibia are leapfrogging straight into a distributed, solar-powered future with YouTube tutorials... It's like watching the fossil era get out-hustled in real time.

To be fair the US is leading the world in solar and wind per capita EDIT: energy consumption from renewables, not installed capacity https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideCo... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-solar?tab=char... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-electricity-per-capi...

those are interesting links, but it doesn't account for the amount of energy each person consumes in each region. Probably this one is better? it's the share of the electricity from renewables

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideCo...

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#370

Post by erghjunk » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 2:39 PM UTC

rel_ic wrote: post #347

Renewable energy is great, but we're not replacing fossil fuels with it, we're just adding more energy usage. And our energy usage is destroying the environment. Don't let these advancements in solar make you think things are getting better. We need to reduce fossil fuel usage, not just increase solar usage. https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/b3b696c0-226d-0137-f265-1d2...

I'm not going to dispute your over-arching point (because I know the data very well), but as a lifelong resident of Appalachia, I can assure you there has been some real and significant reduction in the negative environmental impact of fossil fuels. It's a small comfort and mostly just for those of us who live here, but it's real and visible.