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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

#311

Post by ZeroGravitas »

coredev_ wrote: post #260
p0pularopinion wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nuclear that was built a long time ago would probably have lowered the prices in DE right now, if they weren't shut down. I understand that building new ones right now makes little sense.

Only if it the nuclear didn't need refurbished to keep running.

France and Canada are currently estimating costs to refurb old nuclear that are higher then new build renewables.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#312

Post by adrianN »

RationPhantoms wrote: post #242
kokey wrote: post #47

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'…

In my opinion, the "but" is still the "hellbrise" considerations brought up in the Decouple podcast. Renewable energy is fantastic but, at grid scale, has to be coupled with sufficient storage: https://www.decouple.media/p/hellbrise

You can get pretty far with negligible storage. There is a cost tradeoff between storage, peaker plants (those could burn hydrogen, not just natgas) and grid size. 70% renewable with no storage is rather easy.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#313

Post by embedding-shape »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #272
embedding-shape wrote: post #204

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. 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.

It certainly is possible, people do it all the time, in various countries. Most of the time we call them "homeless", but also there are people who literally set up camp in the forest then stay there, it isn't unheard of.

The book "The Stranger in the Woods" is one such case, about a man who lived in the woods for 27 years by himself.

That said, it isn't easy, and it's harder in some countries than others, but I'd still say it's possible in many countries today, YMMV.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#314

Post by Moldoteck »

mrks_hy wrote: post #157
spants wrote: 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.

> due to the stupid Net Zero taxes. No. Citation neede. The issue is the moronic way energy auctions are done, first by setting the price to the highest source that can satisfy (always gas) but ignoring (!) geography. Then, phase 2, dropping the impossible providers (i.e. Scottish hydro in the North for South England), and doing another (much more expensive pass). The Octopus CEO had a succinct explainer recently, ca…

this is not moronic. This is done everywhere in the world. In fact, merit order does justify more ren deployment even if economics aren't that great, because operators will be paid according to merit order, needing less cfd's. You can also check out how much of the gas electricity price is just carbon tax. And how transmission spending evolved. And how CFD's for different tech evolved in each AR round

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#315

Post by dyauspitr »

testing22321 wrote: post #206
philipkglass wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 $14,00…

Those numbers for Australia are very out of date. My Dad in Australia just got 10.6kw fully installed and running for $4,000 AUD

Was this on his roof? Were there government subsidies?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#316

Post by eigenspace »

adrianN wrote: post #298
eigenspace wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, 70% is more or less a best-case scenario (unless you count systems for recovering and distributing waste heat, then it goes higher)

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#317

Post by SamPatt »

triceratops wrote: post #271
SamPatt wrote: post #229

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. 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.

Agreed. But there are poor people in Canada, and forcing them to pay more money (and slightly lowering their own quality of life) so that wealthier Canadians can install solar panels is, at least, a debatable policy.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#318

Post by earlyriser »

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…

Poor countries are switching to solar: https://climatedrift.substack.com/p/why-solarpunk-is-already...

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#319

Post by Moldoteck »

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…

Nuclear was cheapest firm power in the german merit order. So yes, nuclear does have an impact, especially if it outplaces higher cost units

There is a lot of opposition because zone split would mean erasing southern industry and I may be wrong, but southern regions are pumping most of the money into state budget. Cutting those means cutting own legs.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#320

Post by altern8 »

mrweasel wrote: post #263
altern8 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, prices here in Poland have skyrocketed because of the EU green initiative and we started exporting and prices went up 3-4 times. I'm good with protecting the environment. Here, though, we're making European companies less competitive. They shut down, and Chinese companies fill the gap, flooding us with products that are worse for the environments because they have no laws, bad for workers because they h…

Arguing that European business should be allowed to pollute the environment more, because that's what China does is a little backwards I think. In my mind we should enforce the rules on a per product basis, rather than per country. Where a product is made shouldn't matter, a product should be taxed based on the pollution it has generated, shipping included. Want to sell to the EU: Workers can only work e.g. 40 hours…

Yes, this would be good but I have a feeling it will never happen.
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