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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

e360.yale.edu

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#41

Post by mekdoonggi »

doublerabbit wrote: post #34
mekdoonggi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Why not? You've got abundant wind and solar. Once installed, even if for some reason you can't get new turbines or panels, you'll still have a decent amount of capacity.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#42

Post by coredev_ »

nxm wrote: post #14
flexie wrote: post #6

But Trump explained to us yesterday, how wind and solar is for losers. Surely, we should be looking in to how we can transition back to fossils.

At the end of the day, the retail cost of electricity in many EU member countries can be two to three times the cost of electricity in the US. Ultimately that’s what matters to consumers and businesses. Also, Trump called out the idiotic decisions by greenies such as shutting down nuclear power plants and make long your industries less competitive as a result.

If this is true, it has nothing to do with solar or wind but rather strange decisions in the past in some countries that they (and their neighbors) pay for now (looking at you Germany).

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#43

Post by EdiX »

flexie wrote: post #6

But Trump explained to us yesterday, how wind and solar is for losers. Surely, we should be looking in to how we can transition back to fossils.

Declining industrially and demographically, no innovation, soaring energy prices, and our share of the world economy has shrunk for ten years straight and is projected to continue shrinking in the future. By all metrics us europeans are losers.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#44

Post by DetectDefect »

adrianN wrote: post #40
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.

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.

Oh, okay. Does a warranty cover sweeping snow off your panels and washing them many times throughout the years? I guess if one does not value time, then solar panels could be considered "free" - but this is a bizarre sacrifice.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#46

Post by saubeidl »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #9
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. China wants Russia to at least keep the Ukraine war going, if not eventually win the darn thing. Russia winning (or getting away with an armistice that lets them keep Crimea and Donbas) means a precedence China has for a land-grab of its own - obviously Taiwan, but othe…

That makes sense, but if that's the case, why aren't they invading Taiwan now? Wouldn't now be the perfect time?

Because that would be way more destabilizing globally before the precedent is set and China doesn't want instability.

Which is also, coincidentally why they seem like a better trade partner to me as European at this point.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#47

Post by kokey »

Every time, over the years, that there has been some kind of headline saying renewables have overtaken fossil fuels, when you look at it a bit more closely there is always a big 'but'. For example, it was compared to coal (not taking into account electricity from gas), or it was for one day, or it was a percentage of new installations, or it excludes winter, includes nuclear etc.

This time, however, it looks like it's actually true and that's just for wind and solar. This is incredible, and done through slowly compounding gains that didn't cause massive economic hardships along the way.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#48

Post by boringg »

testing22321 wrote: post #27
mrits wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not always a no-brainer. If you live in a good established neighborhood in a warmer climate you'd have to remove tree coverage. Even if you did that, it's the other guys not oil or gas that will make it a hassle.

New panels are much less impacted by shade. Friends out of town just installed the same setup as ours, didn’t want to cut down three monster Doug firs shading their roof in summer. Made 6.9Mwh in 2025, only just less than ours with no shade at all.

I mean physics would dictate that shade impacts performance but if you are able to break the laws of physics I am impressed!

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#50

Post by boringg »

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.)

Not supporting OP because I think hes backwards on the matter. However in Canada the electricity that is being burned isn't coal based - so you need to compare the actual grid not some hypothetical grid.
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