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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

#141

Post by doublerabbit »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #106
doublerabbit wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar is hit & miss. The only capacity we really have is wind and those are only efficient to those near the sea or in the highlands. England, Scotland, Wales are governed by rain 80% of the year and with the sun we get, household solar rarely breaks even. Just because we've got, if the government isn't supporting it's pretty much wasted. The renewable farms we do have are mostly funded by private investments firms.…

A quick search says the UK produced 18,314 GWh of solar last year. And this was mostly funded by private investment? It seems like for some infrastructure investment, the government is getting long-term renewable power. If the solar isn't making money, why is it growing 30% annually? What is stupid about nuclear? It's a huge amount of clean, secure energy. Would your preference be dependence on Russian/US oil natural…

> What is stupid about nuclear? It's a huge amount of clean, secure energy.

It's not the stupidly of the reactor producing. I don't agree with it personally, but hey whatever, it's a thing. The stupidly of it is that we are small island.

Claim what you wish about how safe they are but like anything: errors and malfunctions. Cyber sabotage and all that.

If an reactor were to implode we're eff'd. We don't have landmass to facilitate the output waste in the UK and the waste we do currently produce has to be shipped elsewhere; sold for dark money.

> Would your preference be dependence on Russian/US oil natural gas? Would you feel the same if Russia invaded Finland/Baltics and US took over Greenland?

My preference would be my hand with a gun pointed at my temple and myself pulling the trigger. To dark?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#142

Post by altern8 »

pranavj wrote: post #124
altern8 wrote: post #52

Well, OK--but at what cost? Electricity/heating and gasoline in the EU is many times more expensive than in the U.S., and as a result EVERYTHING is more expensive. Mix that with lower buying power and taxes and we spend 2-3 times for stuff. I would think that most people would happily choose lower prices over clean energy and paper straws. Our companies are also less and less competitive because of these initiatives,…

EU electricity prices are high, but attributing this to renewables is backwards. Wholesale electricity prices drop when wind and solar are producing - that's been documented extensively. The high prices are largely due to: (1) gas setting marginal prices during peak hours, (2) grid infrastructure that hasn't kept pace, and (3) taxes/levies that fund the transition. As battery storage grows and reduces gas dependency…

I'm not attributing to renewables, but green initiatives.

For instance, the rising prices of carbon permits under the EU emissions trading scheme.

So, my point is that countries that don't ignore the economy just to be green--like the U.S. and specially China--seem to have vastly cheaper electricity and gasoline, which I would guess makes them more competitive/lowers prices.

Over here we have no NG and no oil, and on top of that we tax our companies because of emission limits, while in China they burn coal like there is no tomorrow.

We wanted to outlaw non-electric cars, while the car industry in Europe is huge and we don't have a way to build batteries, etc. etc.

Seems to be a pattern that is hard to understand.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#143

Post by llm_nerd »

tialaramex wrote: post #95
munk-a wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's alternative energy source is very rarely coal (no where near me at least) but a lot of the grid capacity is coming from LNG outside of ON/QC. BC has a bunch of rivers and other water features but has been highly reluctant to build out hydro supply, as an example.

Unlike the UK (which mothballed and eventually tore down its coal power stations) there is still a whole bunch of coal power online in Canada. Lingan Generating Station would be a typical example. Big thermal power station, built to burn local coal, realistically the transition for them is to non-coal thermal power, burning LNG or Oil, or trees or whatever else can be set on fire. If they burned trash (which isn't re…

>there is still a whole bunch of coal power online in Canada.

Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta, the four largest provinces by population and a heady percentage of the land area, have zero coal power generation facilities.

Ontario is mostly nuclear supported by hydro, with an absolute fallback of natural gas. Quebec is overwhelmingly hydro + wind. BC is mostly hydro. Alberta is mostly non-renewables like natural gas, but phased out its last coal plants.

If someone is in Canada, odds are extremely high that there is no coal plant anywhere in their jurisdiction. I also wouldn't say that there is a whole bunch of coal power online -- they're an extreme exception now.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#144

Post by philipkglass »

dyauspitr wrote: post #94
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 is the underlying reason in the US though? You would think if they are artificially inflated prices the market would fix that. What I’ve found is that a large part of the cost is the actual labor for the installation, how are other developed countries getting around this?

It's mostly due to higher "soft costs" such as complicated/slow permitting and high customer acquisition costs. Australia has a higher minimum wage but much lower costs to get a rooftop system installed.

"How to cut U.S. residential solar costs in half"

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/07/11/how-to-cut-u-s-reside...

Birch points to Australia, where he said the average 7 kW solar array with a 7 kW battery costs $14,000. That equates to $2.02 per W, with batteries included.

“You can sell it on Tuesday and install it on Wednesday, there’s no red tape, no permitting delays,” said Birch.

...

In the United States, that same solar and battery installation averages $36,000, said Birch. Permitting alone can take two to six months, and the cost per watt of a solar plus storage installation is up to 2.5 times the Australian price, landing at $5.18 per W.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#145

Post by ezfe »

GuB-42 wrote: post #64
munk-a wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that on-roof-solar helps (as it becomes widespread) mitigate the growing need for additional grid capacity. Canada is a big country and, outside the major cities, upgrading grid capacity is quite expensive per capita. It's a win-win in Canada, investing in self-sufficiency while reducing the maintenance burden of infrastructure.

If there is no in-house storage to match, how does it help the grid? It is still needed for cold winter nights, where demand is high and solar panels produce nothing. Hydro can provide the power, but the grid will be running at full load.

in-house storage helps, but net-metering and grid-storage also works

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#146

Post by MadDemon »

p0pularopinion wrote: post #70
coredev_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Nuclear does not cause prices to be lower. Putting that aside, political discourse here in Germany was "interesting" to say the least. The shift to renewables started off pretty well in the early 2010s before it came to a grinding halt thanks to some wierd debates around the topic. For the past few years, buildout of solar has been remarkably fast, especially considering the slow pace of other projects. In 2025, 16.4…

The high voltage DC transmission lines from north to south are being built right now and for example SuedLink is expected to be operational in 2028. Their transmission capacity will be more than enough. Why would you split Germany into electricity zones now, if in a few years the transmission problem will largely be fixed?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#147

Post by mrks_hy »

sp4cec0wb0y wrote: post #136

Imagine the powerhouse America would be (pun intended) if we subsidized nuclear energy to become the defacto producer of nuclear power plants world wide. Sometimes it is easier said than done but this really is as easy as said.

You have it backwards. At the current cost curve for renewables and storage, Nuclear will never again be able to compete.

See: the overly optimistic SMR plans being predictably scrapped in many places.

What you do have is ample land to build out solar and export eg. Ammonia (made out of Hydrogen) for "free" energy.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#148

Post by direwolf20 »

altern8 wrote: post #100
p0pularopinion wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electricity/heating and gasoline in the EU is many times more expensive than in the U.S. Maybe because Europe as a whole has little to no signifcant oil reserves ready for extraction? Very much unlike the US. > I would think that most people would happily choose lower prices over clean energy and paper straws. The US does have plenty of cheap energy and yet its industrial output is dwarfed by Chinas, which is incre…

True, there is no oil and we just relied on cheap gas from Russia--which I guess it didn't turn out to be a good strategy after all. That's interesting about oil companies. Is that who's lobbing to pass laws that just seem (to me) to be written on purpose to make our companies less competitive? How does that work, how do oil companies profit from that?

If you can sell more oil and at a higher price, you get more money.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#149

Post by amanaplanacanal »

account42 wrote: post #107
dyauspitr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the underlying reason in the US though? You would think if they are artificially inflated prices the market would fix that. What I’ve found is that a large part of the cost is the actual labor for the installation, how are other developed countries getting around this?

Mostly by giving people free money to install them so they go on the internet to say how cheap they are.

That might be cheaper than grid upgrades though. Even though some people might get upset that somebody else is getting something for free.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#150

Post by WarmWash »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #122
WarmWash wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donbas is mostly wheat fields, Taiwan is mostly SOTA semiconductor fabs that currently are the sole pillar holding up the AI (and compute in general) zeitgeist. The global response would not be the same, even remotely. And what would China get from it? A tiny island of rubble and an ego boost, while losing enormous global favor? The cost of that island may well be a few trillion for China, just so they can say they d…

The semiconductors are propping up the AI zietgeist in the US, but is that true globally? Why would Canada/Brazil/Europe care about Taiwan? China will still sell them the chips. The only one who would really care is the US. So by taking Taiwan, China blows up the US stock market and takes control of the chips.

Every country on Earth benefits from the chips that come from Taiwan, and not just the governments, the people using pretty much anything that does computation. That includes China.
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