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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#31

Post by microtonal »

DetectDefect wrote: post #22
testing22321 wrote: post #4

Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. Canada here. 7.6kw on our roof for $0 out of pocket thanks to $5k grant and $8k interest free loan. It makes 7.72Mwh per year, worth $1000. Tight valley, tons of snow. We put that on the loan for 8 years, then get $1000 per year free money for 20 years or so. Biggest no brainer of all time. Dad in Victoria Australia just got 1…

Missing from your calculus is the cost of creating, cleaning, maintaining and eventually replacing the hardware. None of that is "free" - it is merely externalized to a vulnerable population or to your future self.

Missing from your calculus are the healthcare costs of every person in a country breathing in fumes from electricity plants that burn coal and fumes from cars that burn gasoline.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266675922...

(And a gazillion other studies.)

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#33

Post by Tepix »

testing22321 wrote: post #4

Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. Canada here. 7.6kw on our roof for $0 out of pocket thanks to $5k grant and $8k interest free loan. It makes 7.72Mwh per year, worth $1000. Tight valley, tons of snow. We put that on the loan for 8 years, then get $1000 per year free money for 20 years or so. Biggest no brainer of all time. Dad in Victoria Australia just got 1…

450W-500W solar panels are as low as 52€ here in Germany if you buy a couple of them. Batteries are also very affordable and I look forward to them getting a lot cheaper soon, thanks to Sodium-Ion.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#34

Post by doublerabbit »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #21
spants wrote: post #15

The UK has some of the highest energy costs in the world due to the stupid Net Zero taxes. Our economy and manufacturing is suffering.

Have you considered that what you're paying for isn't just energy now, but energy security in the future?

I don't see any energy security for the future for the UK unfortunately. We sold ourselves short during the GW/Blair Neo-labour era. Scotland maybe, they have wind-farms but the UK likes to tax that. We've just started the era of paying for the cost of Brexit. It's hitting hard.

My weekly supermarket shop for the basic essentials (cheese, eggs, flour, vegetables) now come to around $60/80 a trip.

Parmesan Cheese is around ~£22-£45 ($30-$60) per kg compared to the US $7–$24+ per kg.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#35

Post by DetectDefect »

microtonal wrote: post #31
DetectDefect wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing from your calculus is the cost of creating, cleaning, maintaining and eventually replacing the hardware. None of that is "free" - it is merely externalized to a vulnerable population or to your future self.

Missing from your calculus are the healthcare costs of every person in a country breathing in fumes from electricity plants that burn coal and fumes from cars that burn gasoline. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266675922... (And a gazillion other studies.)

[flagged]

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#36

Post by ricardo81 »

spants wrote: post #15

The UK has some of the highest energy costs in the world due to the stupid Net Zero taxes. Our economy and manufacturing is suffering.

The social and environmental cost part is being removed in April and should save around 15-20% of the bill. I guess that is what you mean by net zero taxes?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#37

Post by microtonal »

raincole wrote: post #10
mekdoonggi wrote: post #2

Curious if this will eventually change China's calculus with regards to Russia. If Europe is a big customer for Chinese exports, and Russia is antagonizing, it seems like China would have an incentive to put pressure on Russia. It already seems like Russia is positioned to be completely subservient to China in the future.

If Europe were a big customer for Russia energy, it seems like Russia would have an incentive to not antagonize it. Oh, see how well it went.

It also works the other way around and I am pretty sure that was what Russia was betting on - with Europe's dependence on Russian energy, Europe would not react strongly to Russia's invasion.

That did not go as expected for Russia either.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#38

Post by boringg »

testing22321 wrote: post #4

Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. Canada here. 7.6kw on our roof for $0 out of pocket thanks to $5k grant and $8k interest free loan. It makes 7.72Mwh per year, worth $1000. Tight valley, tons of snow. We put that on the loan for 8 years, then get $1000 per year free money for 20 years or so. Biggest no brainer of all time. Dad in Victoria Australia just got 1…

What? No Canada isn't cheap solar power -- last I checked rooftop ballasted solar is a 12-14 year payback on avoided costs. Inverter will go beforehand and that excludes any op costs. 8k$ free loan doesn't really provide as much value as you would think.

FWIW - I am all for solar but selling rooftop solar in canada as cheap and no-brainer is false.

3-4 year payback would be a no brainer. 8-13 year payback with an inverter upgrade and op-costs is definitely a decision that needs to be thought out.

The grid you are offsetting is fairly green to begin with so the net benefit is marginal.

If you are going to be isolated and put backup power into the equation. You ROI tanks further but at least you have about a day or two worth of energy in the storage asset.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#39

Post by jacquesm »

njarboe wrote: post #12
jacquesm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's $1000 per year at today's energy prices, which surely will go up over time.

One could hope with improving tech and decreasing regulations we could have decreasing (nominal) energy prices in the future. That would be progress.

Demand is rising very fast compared to supply, I don't think that will happen.

Energy is like RAM or clockspeed: you can't have enough of it.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#40

Post by adrianN »

DetectDefect wrote: post #22
testing22321 wrote: post #4

Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. Canada here. 7.6kw on our roof for $0 out of pocket thanks to $5k grant and $8k interest free loan. It makes 7.72Mwh per year, worth $1000. Tight valley, tons of snow. We put that on the loan for 8 years, then get $1000 per year free money for 20 years or so. Biggest no brainer of all time. Dad in Victoria Australia just got 1…

Missing from your calculus is the cost of creating, cleaning, maintaining and eventually replacing the hardware. None of that is "free" - it is merely externalized to a vulnerable population or to your future self.

Panels have warranties of over twenty years now. They pay for themselves much earlier. You probably have to replace the inverter earlier, but that’s not a huge expense. I don’t know anybody who lives in a place where it rains who cleans the panels on their roof.
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