In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels • Hacker News Board

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#291

Post by Moldoteck » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

sp4cec0wb0y wrote: post #166

mrks_hy wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

SMR will always have worse economics than LMR's if both are streamlined

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#292

Post by blell » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

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…

OTOH, oil and gas prices in Europe are criminal, so there's that.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#293

Post by fleroviumna » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #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

[dead]

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#294

Post by SamPatt » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #268

SamPatt wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly my point. They're making decisions based on their economic reality not sacrificing for environmental principles like the above commenter. Solar is great. It can stand on its own without subsidies.

> They're making decisions based on their economic reality not sacrificing for environmental principles You don't know this, and to some degree likely cannot know this.

At an individual level? Agreed.

But at a national level the data is compelling. I'm convinced by the Environmental Kuznets Curve.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#295

Post by fullstop » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

ricardo81 wrote: post #225

amiga386 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One bar's plenty!" "Victor, it's gratis, get the three bloody bars on." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUMCO8cFrPU

3 bars? gonnae no dae that.

Put the bulb on. That suggests warmth.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#296

Post by M2Ys4U » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #141

mekdoonggi wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>We don't have landmass to facilitate the output waste in the UK

Yes, we do. It really doesn't make that much space to store the waste. The biggest problem is people being irrationally scared of it.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#297

Post by Moldoteck » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

canucktrash669 wrote: post #231

WW3 called and said solar is harder to disrupt through bombing than massive power plants. Seems like a great deal even if it was more expensive.

disrupting the grid will still be easy. And cluster bombs can heavily impact land solar

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#298

Post by adrianN » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

eigenspace wrote: post #265

owenversteeg wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only asterisk this time is that this is electricity, not energy. Still impressive, but electricity is only 22% of total energy use, so they are at about 12% of the total for the EU and 7.8% for Europe. For that, you want this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... Fun to play around with, you can also change the selection to view the world, US, China, individual EU countries etc. Y…

It can be rather misleading to to talk about renewable energy generation versus total energy usage. Most uses of fossil fuels are very inefficient. For instance, when you step on the accelerator in your car, only around 30% of the energy in the fuel you use actually is being used to propel you forward. The majority of the energy is wasted as heat. In a power plant that's more like 70% being captured and going towards…

Most power plants are less than 50% efficient.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#299

Post by yosefk » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

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…

The list of the oil producers listed and omitted on a given forum in these contexts is always interesting. On HN it is often SA or Russia, and almost never Qatar or Iran.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#300

Post by owenversteeg » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

eigenspace wrote: post #265

owenversteeg wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only asterisk this time is that this is electricity, not energy. Still impressive, but electricity is only 22% of total energy use, so they are at about 12% of the total for the EU and 7.8% for Europe. For that, you want this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... Fun to play around with, you can also change the selection to view the world, US, China, individual EU countries etc. Y…

It can be rather misleading to to talk about renewable energy generation versus total energy usage. Most uses of fossil fuels are very inefficient. For instance, when you step on the accelerator in your car, only around 30% of the energy in the fuel you use actually is being used to propel you forward. The majority of the energy is wasted as heat. In a power plant that's more like 70% being captured and going towards…

I mostly agree. Certainly transportation is an obvious one. But of course there are still some losses; when you include all the losses in the system and cold weather you can easily get ~80% for EVs vs. ~30% for ICE cars. Heat pumps can be very efficient, but 5x more efficient than combustion/resistive heating (which is near 100%...) is not common in practice. 3x, sure, plenty of installations that get that or better in mild climates.

That said, those are two pretty large items. If we reached 90% electrification on both it would be a pretty big win: Road transport represents ~26% of global energy use and all heating/cooling (industry, building, agriculture) represents ~50%.