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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

#331

Post by altern8 »

torlok wrote: post #257
altern8 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, I'm in Poland and all we had was coal. Now it will take a few decades to have our own source of power again. Maybe 20-30 years..? What are oil companies doing to drive European companies out of business (not saying they aren't, I just don't know)?

I'm from Poland too and the only thing we have is land, the sun, and wind. Coal poisons the air we breathe, and hurts the climate our children will live in. It's not about money, it's about security. The worst thing for polish security is being dependent on foreign oil and gas, and to be reliant on a few power plants that are an easy target for russian drones, and rely on water from rivers that are running dry more a…

I like nuclear.

But I think it's a huge investment that would take decades.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#332

Post by WheatMillington »

munk-a wrote: post #8
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…

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.

Solar does basically nothing to help with grid capacity.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#333

Post by altern8 »

pjc50 wrote: post #214
altern8 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, I'm in Poland and all we had was coal. Now it will take a few decades to have our own source of power again. Maybe 20-30 years..? What are oil companies doing to drive European companies out of business (not saying they aren't, I just don't know)?

Poland still has majority coal power production! It's one of last places you can possibly blame renewables for pricing.

Well, green initiatives made us stop using coal.

Also, we've started exporting because of carbon credits--which caused prices to skyrocket.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#334

Post by triceratops »

barney54 wrote: post #327
vondur wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That’s because net metering is a transfer from people who can’t afford solar to the rich people who can. https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2024/04/22/californias-ex...

Which is true. But it's a rug pull for people who spent money on their panels expecting an RoI. Were existing installations grandfathered in?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#335

Post by AlexandrB »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #266
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…

Great job of indirectly implying that there must be a tradeoff. Funny thing though: those poor countries? They're not building nuclear, or oil fired, or coal fired, or natural gas plants. They're installing solar. Not necessarily because they care about what percentage of their energy usage is renewable, but because there is no tradeoff . Further, environmental protection is not a luxury good, it's a long term invest…

Environmental protection may be a long-term investment, but reducing CO2 emission is probably not. The results are too diffuse and you're at the mercy of other countries' energy policy. If you're a small country, you can invest in CO2 reduction all you want, but what actually happens will be up to the US, China, and India.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#336

Post by eigenspace »

Moldoteck wrote: post #328
eigenspace wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is likely going to have to be hydrogen, but there's a pretty difficult catch with hydrogen: it makes zero sense to invest in any hydrogen electricity storage infrastructure until the grid is already like 80+% renewable. There's simply no sense in turning electricity into hydrogen so that it could be used in 6 months (losing 50+% of the energy along the way as heat!) when you could just sell that electricit…

even in 10y h2 is economically unviable. Check out Norway/Sweden, they got tons of ren. Are they some _cheap_ H2 generation meccas? There are some chances for other synth fuels but H2 is just a pipedream

Norway and Sweden have tones of renewable energy, but relatively little intermittent energy. If the economics of H2 ever work, it'll only ever work in a grid that's driven by intermittent energy sources (wind and solar).

A hydro-driven grid does not need storage. Hell, if you have enough hydro, it can even be your storage. Not all of Europe has the geography to be able to cover their needs with just hydro.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#337

Post by jaksdfkskf »

sl_convertible wrote: post #287
apercu wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly, and the technocrats are complicit with the GOP here. It's funny how “free markets” keep producing the most expensive solar prices in the developed world. Don't get me started on Healthcare (I just moved back to the U.S. a couple years ago after 18 years in Canada, what a cluster*ck). Oil and gas buy politicians, foreign oil money buys media influence, and social-media bots keep voters angry at…

If even a Democratically-led California is doing this, how can you point fingers at just the GOP? It's endemic to the system, and not restricted to just one party.

[dead]

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#338

Post by rfrey »

WheatMillington wrote: post #329
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…

It's criminal to not hand huge subsidies to people like you who are already likely well-off, so you can generate passive income for the rest of your life?

Oil and gas subsidies in Canada dwarf whatever pittance is tossed out to renewable energy. People getting an interest free loan for rooftop solar may be well off (they own houses), but I guarantee the CEO of TC Energy is doing even better.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#339

Post by Moldoteck »

mrweasel wrote: post #210
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,…

> Well, OK--but at what cost? It costs less? The Danish organisation for green energy interest (biased I known) has calculations that shows a 5 billion DKK saving per year for the Danish consumers. So about €0.02 per kWh. I also think you're wrong about prices. I think most will pay more, if they get clean energy. Not a lot more, but if it's only a few cents, I think many/most will pay that, perhaps not happily, but…

there's a meme with a few cents more in germany, can search on the google "eis kugel energiewende"

DK has one of the highest household prices in EU per eurostat https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Imo CO2 tax should be gone to alleviate this, especially when China and US dont have it. This just causes offshoring.

If you want electrification, you need cheap electricity. If you want more ren, you put more incentives there instead of overtaxing fossils to make own industry uncompetitive

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#340

Post by triceratops »

embedding-shape wrote: post #306
coryrc wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you get far higher ROI for the large-scale installations. In case you weren't familiar, Canada has a lot of other things which need the money than paying 5x per watt to subsidize panels on your roof instead of on the ground.

> Because you get far higher ROI for the large-scale installations. Right, but as always, ROI is hardly the most important thing in life, there is more considerations than just "makes more money". For example, as someone affected by a day long country-wide electricity outage where essentially the entire country was without electricity and internet for ~14 hours or something, decentralizing energy across the country s…

Grid-scale solar installations can be much more decentralized than nuclear or natural gas power plants.

Decentralizing through subsidies at the homeowner level is maybe not the best use of money.

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