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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

#271

Post by triceratops »

SamPatt wrote: post #229
embedding-shape wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Definitely a great deal if you own a home, if I was a renter/condo owner I'd be annoyed that everyone is subsidizing your free solar however. What kind of selfish point of view is this? Don't you want people to use energy sources that are better for our entire world, even if it costs you like $10 more in taxes per year? Seems like a no brainer deal if you like "the outside" and you want it to still be there. I'm a…

>I'm a renter, been all my life, I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if it means more solar panels for everyone except me. That's because you're rich like most people on HN. Environmental protection is a luxury good. This has been proven time and time again. A great reason to prioritize growth and wealth creation. Poor countries don't make those tradeoffs, they're worried about survival not what percentage of their ene…

Canada isn't poor.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#272

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

embedding-shape wrote: post #204
sneak wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more unjust than forcing someone to buy something they do not want simply because you think it would be good for them. > Seems like a no brainer deal This is opinion, not fact. I happen to share your opinion, but enshrining opinions in law is almost always going to violate someone’s consent.

> There is nothing more unjust than forcing someone to buy something they do not want simply because you think it would be good for them. Who said that? Taxes are what you pay to be a member of the society you live, and also to help those less fortunate, like your neighbors. You can skip paying those, if you stop living in society, many done that before, and it is still possible.You can't possibly see taxes as "forci…

> You can skip paying those, if you stop living in society, many done that before, and it is still possible.

Actually, generally speaking this is almost certainly not possible for more than short periods of time.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#273

Post by hlk »

SamPatt wrote: post #229
embedding-shape wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Definitely a great deal if you own a home, if I was a renter/condo owner I'd be annoyed that everyone is subsidizing your free solar however. What kind of selfish point of view is this? Don't you want people to use energy sources that are better for our entire world, even if it costs you like $10 more in taxes per year? Seems like a no brainer deal if you like "the outside" and you want it to still be there. I'm a…

>I'm a renter, been all my life, I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if it means more solar panels for everyone except me. That's because you're rich like most people on HN. Environmental protection is a luxury good. This has been proven time and time again. A great reason to prioritize growth and wealth creation. Poor countries don't make those tradeoffs, they're worried about survival not what percentage of their ene…

Turkey is a poorer country and has more wind and solar capacity by percentage than US.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#274

Post by pimeys »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #152
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…

>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…

In Germany you are allowed to install solar to your balcony as a renter.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#275

Post by triceratops »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #269
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm a renter, been all my life, I'd be happy to pay more in taxes if it means more solar panels for everyone except me. But I also feel the same about elder care, health care and a bunch of other things, do you feel the same for those things too, or this is specifically about solar or owning vs renting? There's an alternative, and almost certainly cheaper per watt with cost of scale, where your tax dollars go to a n…

What's the difference between a new solar farm and new solar panels on roofs (or the ground) ?

The solar farm produces more energy per dollar spent. Rooftop solar is expensive. It produces comparatively fewer kw to amortize the fixed costs over - permitting, getting up on the roof etc.

If a country has abundant land and expensive labor, the money is probably best spent improving grid transmission capacity and otherwise getting the f- out of the way of utility-scale renewables. Places like Pakistan, which is going through a rooftop solar boom, are arguably the opposite - scarce land in the cities, but cheap labor to get up on roofs.

Happy to hear any analyses to the contrary and update my knowledge accordingly.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#276

Post by [deleted] »

vegadw wrote: post #215
sneak wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more unjust than forcing someone to buy something they do not want simply because you think it would be good for them. > Seems like a no brainer deal This is opinion, not fact. I happen to share your opinion, but enshrining opinions in law is almost always going to violate someone’s consent.

> This is opinion, not fact Not OP, but it wasn't presented as a fact. Literally used the word Seams. > There is nothing more unjust than forcing someone to buy something they do not want simply because you think it would be good for them Seatbelts? Circuit breakers? Literally any safety equipment. You're required to have them because it's not just good for you, but expensive to society if hospital beds are low or th…

[deleted]

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#277

Post by coryrc »

simion314 wrote: post #191
_aavaa_ wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a non car owner are you annoyed everyone gets subsidized roads? Yes, and people should be annoyed by this given the underfunding, poor urban planning, and outright hostility by many local governments against anything that dares encroach on the sanctity of car culture.

>Yes, and people should be annoyed by this So you do not use busses,taxi or road travel? do you fly all the time? Do you have stuff delivered by truck/cars or only by air? What about shopping? do you think the items you buy or the things needed to make those items use roads ? In a perfect extremist capitalist word there would be a road tax included in the products and services so you would still pay the text for the…

Trucks are responsible for 99% of road damage and only pay 38% of the costs.

https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-indu...

Yes, the costs should be apportioned to those who are making them. If the bus causes the most road damage, then it should be charged. Then it'll make financial sense to invest in rail. Financial incentives are how capitalism works and the purpose of governments under capitalism is to apply externalities to the source causing them.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#278

Post by vondur »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #119
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…

> Solar prices in the US are criminal, protecting oil and gas who bought all the politicians. It would be worth including control of the people who vote for the politicians by direct investment such as when the oil producing Saudis bought the second largest stake in NewCorps which controls FoxNews controlling the content that influences voters. And, less than ethical control using bots on social media by Russia. A lo…

Here in California, they drastically cut back on the price that you get for solar powered electricity from homeowners. It used to be around $0.30/kWh at any time of day and now it's can drop to $0.00-$0.05/kWh during the day when the state is sunny. If you can afford to have a battery installed, the rates are far better as you can either run off the battery when rates are the highest in the evening, or you can export it back to the grid when prices are much higher.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#279

Post by eigenspace »

when_creaks wrote: post #247

Encouraging. However, it isn't clear from the article at first glance (or the deeper analysis being referenced) how electricity consumption by power source is changing. In other words, as an example, a 10% increase in solar power generation does not necessarily mean that there was a 10% increase in electricity consumption where that electricity was generated via solar. i.e. It is entirely possible for a growing solar…

What you're talking about is commonly called "curtailment", where power generators like wind and solar can be told to basically stop feeding into the grid, effectively wasting their energy.

From what I recall, curtailment of wind and solar at least in Germany amounts to about 3% wasted energy from those sources, so no, it's not a very significant worry. These renewable sources really are displacing fossil fuels.

A big part of this story is batteries. Especially during the summer, the wholesale electricity price in Germany can swing daily from -10 to +10 cents per kWh during the mid-day, up to 150+ cents per kWh at night, due to supply-and-demand.

This gradient in prices creates a huge incentive for people to build batteries that buy up cheap electricity during the day (sometimes literally getting paid to do so), so that they can sell it back later on in the day when prices rise. This incentive helps make sure energy does not get wasted, it encourages more batteries to be installed, and it encourages businesses to shift the their energy usage to times of the day that align with high renewable output.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#280

Post by cmxch »

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.)

Those costs can be safely deemed as 0, especially when you use Reed Elsevier.
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