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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

#161
post #80

The article uses the words "more power" and "overtaking fossil fuels", but the graph is actually about electricity generation. They are not the same thing, at least, in my head, because not all energy consumed in Europe comes in the form of electricity. If I heat my home with natural gas and drive an ICE car, this is me using fossil fuels in a way that has nothing to do with electricity and it won't be reflected in t…

"Power" usually means electricity when used colloquially.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#162
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.

This is a glib statement that disregards a massive amount of complexity.

Energy is not expensive because of Net Zero taxes. Here's a breakdown of the average UK electricity bill over time [1]. The Renewables Obligation, that subsidised wind and solar at a time when they were infeasible without subsidies, was a scheme that ran between 2002 and 2017. It was stopped once renewables became cheaper than the alternatives. We will continue to pay for the renewable plants set up back in the day, but this will gradually taper off. In this electricity bill estimate for 2030 [2], you'll find that the Renewables Obligation is much lower (£17 rather than £102) for two reasons: plants losing subsidies as they age out and a chunk of the subsidy being borne by the treasury from general taxation.

So why aren't electricity bills coming down? Because we're recognising the reality that we will need to be powered by a mix of nuclear, wind and solar. Check out this real time dashboard of electricity generation in the UK [3], which shows you how Wind has zoomed in the last 14 years. From 2GW to 14GW, wind is now the single largest source of energy generated in the UK.

Wind is only going to grow, because it is cheap compared to the alternatives. In the Jan 2026 auction for wind power, an 8.4GW contract was awarded for a price 40% lower than the cost of a gas power plant. And unlike gas you aren't at the vagaries of global gas prices, like we were in 2022.

And now you're thinking, if wind is so cheap and we're continuing to build more, why is the estimate for the 2030 electricity bill higher than 2025? The 2030 page explains this - the wind is being built in the North Sea, far from where it is needed - in the South of England. This means investing in the transmission network, which will cost £70B over the next 5 years. That cost will be passed onto consumers.

So no, bills aren't high because of renewables. The decision to double down on wind, solar, batteries and nuclear by the previous and current government are sound. We will be more energy independent than we were in 2022 and possibly paying a bit less in overall bills. The reduction in carbon emissions is a nice bonus.

[1] - https://www.electricitybills.uk

[2] - https://www.electricitybills.uk/2030

[3] - https://grid.iamkate.com

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#163

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…

US also tariffs Chinese EV makers out of the US market so they can keep peddling the fiction that EV sucks or China can't build anything we can't.

This has the same corrupt nexus with the anti-renewable mantra. Essentially subsidize oil and gas under the table and punish renewables then tell the electorate that the latter is worse than the former.

Instead of giving Americans free choice American automakers pay American politicians to prop up their uncompetitive prices and subpar offerings. All while they take in huge private profits. American workers could work on foreign automobiles, just as they do with other automakers not from China. It's not about workers, it's not about national security. You don't even have to go into all the environmental concerns that of course disproportionately affect poorer individuals.

It's corporate welfare. And yes, it should be criminal. At the very least, if the American people are going to inflate CEOs salaries they should have seats on the board.

This is actually not a wild idea. You might be surprised to find who one of the largest shareholders of the Volkswagen group is. It's not like that is an obviously mismanaged socialist hellhole company, it's a perfectly competitive and well regarded car company.

Americans need to start demanding more equity or oversight in operations their governments are already paying for. The fact most Americans think this amounts to communism just means more people have to call out the money is already flowing.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#164
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'd disagree the fervor is religious. I think it's more frustration. Pointing out there is a maintenance cost to infrastructure is silly and doesn't add to the discussion. We all know materials have to be shaped into machines to extract energy.

Simply ask to quantify the cost of shaping those materials into machinery, respective to other means of energy production. You will be met with hostility and scorn, accused of all sorts of improprieties, and ejected from the tribe, without ever receiving a data-supported answer.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#165
If you’re interested in this topic I highly recommend Tony Seba’s analyses.

He argues that because solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of new energy generation, they are on an unstoppable exponential "S-curve" that will make coal, gas, and nuclear power obsolete by 2030.

Look up his videos on YT, for example this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj96nxtHdTU

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#166

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.

Correct me if I am wrong but the only reason nuclear is expensive is because of how costly the facilities are to build and maintain. If we were not setback during the anti-nuclear era, we would have gained economies of scale. The reason why solar is so cheap is for the exact same reason is it not? I am not an expert on this topic so take everything I say with a massive grain of salt as I am willing to be wrong on this.

Edit: After further reading it appears that solar will be the defacto affordable option in energy production, even with SMRs and streamlined construction in the picture. Perhaps a mix of renewables, better battery infra, and SMRs for stable sources of power is the future.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lies. I'm using solar panels since 2022, still producing same peak energy and not cleaned them once. Some companies/electricians will try to sell you a cleaning and maintenance service for ~80-100EUR/year here but it's basically throwing money.

I live in a fairly arid place (Bay Area) where it rains in winter but gets quite dry and dusty in the summer. I've had rooftop solar since 2016 and have noticed that generation decreases by as much as 8-10% when the panels are covered in summer dust.

I wonder if it's worth setting up a sort of sprinkler system so you can easily clean it by opening a valve. Maybe add a pipe with some holes in it to the top of the panel, and some flexible hose to hook it up to the next one.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#168
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are cheaper than fencing material, and will continue to decline in price.

And, credit where credit is due, it's all thanks to China.

2022-11-28 - “About 2.6 million Uyghur and Kazakh people have been subjected to coercion, “re-education programs” and internment in the Xinjiang region of north-west China, which is the source of 40-45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon. A report by the United Nations office of the high commissioner for human rights three months ago found Xinjiang was home to “serious human rights violations”, and the US has listed polysilicon from China as a material likely to have been produced by child or forced labour.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/29/evidence...

2024-08-27 - Indian solar panels face US scrutiny for possible links to China forced labor

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indian-solar-panels-...

2025-04-30 - Human Rights in the Life Cycle of Renewable Energy and Critical Minerals

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/c...

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#169

I'm curious as to how this will shift once the shift towards more electrification continues. This is only about electricity generation, not total power consumption. Nowadays, for very energy intenive things like heating or driving a car, fossil fuels still are more prevalent than electric alternatives. Once demand shifts in favor of the electrified alternatives, electricity demand is continuing to raise (although not…

> Particularly in heating, where peak demand is in times with very little solar generation, it seems like this will be challenging.

Heating is actually likely to be one of the easier questions here, because heat is just fundamentally an easier problem to tackle than most other intensive uses of energy in the modern world.

1. Solar isn't the only incredibly cheap form of intermittant renwewable energy production. Wind is also great, tends to support local manufacturing economies more than solar, and is anti-correlated with peak-sunshine. The wind tends to blow hardest in the winter and around sunset.

2. Heatpumps can pretty comfortably achieve 300+% coefficients of performance, meaning that for every joule of energy you put into a heatpump, you'll get 3+ joules of heat pumped into your home, office, or city-scale heat thermos

3. Heat energy storage is cheap compared to batteries. You just store large quantities of water or sand and heat it up with a resistor or a heat pump. The scaling of surface area versus volume ensures that the bigger you make the heat-battery, the less energy you'll lose from it over time (percentage wise).

4. Heat is a waste product from many other forms of energy usage, and can be harnessed. For instance, gas peaker plants aren't going away any time soon, and cities which aren't harnessing the waste heat from those peaker plants and using it in a district heating system are wasting both money and carbon.

Just a couple kilometers from my home for instance is a gas power plant that stores waste heat in giant thermoses, and pumps hot water to my building to to be used for heating. They currently have the largest heat pump in europe under construction on the same site intended to supplement the gas plant, both to take up slack from the fact that it'll be running less often, and to expand the service to yet more households.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#170

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…

>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. This very well may be true, but taken at face value Canada seems to be paying you around $7k to install solar panels on your roof (that's 8k interest free loan is losing out to inflation + any interest it would have earned). D…

> if I was a renter/condo owner I'd be annoyed that everyone is subsidizing your free solar however.

As a non car owner are you annoyed everyone gets subsidized roads?

Are you annoyed corn farmers get subsidies for growing corn?

Would you be annoyed if people got subsidized life saving health care?

It feels like the US can’t have nice things because people are hell bent on others not having nice things.

What a shame.

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