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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

e360.yale.edu

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#371

Post by direwolf20 »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #355
coryrc wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It'd be interesting to try charging vehicles relative to the road damage they do as it's proportional to around the fourth power of weight. It would likely change the nature of logistics as it could mean that large trucks would be more expensive that using two or three smaller trucks. Similarly, buses would benefit from being smaller and lighter.

Trucks already have lots of axles and wheels for this reason, because it's weight per wheel that matters.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#373

Post by triceratops »

margalabargala wrote: post #366
triceratops wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The generation is distributed. That only benefits the people who have panels on their rooftops. If we want them to share the excess with others during a power outage it requires further grid investment. I think homeowners should install solar panels and batteries where it makes economic sense. If there's money left over after funding utility-scale solar then it should be used for EV incentives and/or funding electrif…

You absolutely do not want them sharing the excess with neighbors during a power outage, this is how you get dead linemen. Solar panel grid tied inverters generally will refuse to function if there's no external power coming in. The benefit from the distributed generation means that if your local area has large loads added you don't necessarily need to upgrade the HVDC lines from the power plant to accommodate.

Upvoted.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#374

Post by grumbelbart »

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…

Exactly. It is in general (much) more efficient to burn natural gas in a power plant and use the electricity for heatpumps compared to simply burning gas at home for heating.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#375

Post by RationPhantoms »

adrianN wrote: post #312
RationPhantoms wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure if you read the podcast but the whole point is that over-reliance on renewables without a sufficient means to handle oversupply can cause grid instability specific to the Spain/Portugal grid outage.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#376

Post by testing22321 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #344
triceratops wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Canada not have progressive taxation? How do poor people pay more than rich people? To be clear, I don't think rooftop solar subsidies are the best use of government money either. Governments should subsidize utility-scale solar, EVs, efficient buildings, and mass transit. They should focus on cheaper and more efficient permitting, and better grids.

Canada should invest in Nuclear. Solar is far less efficient in Canada than somewhere like California - whether rooftop or utility-scale. The short winter days, low angle of incidence, and snow means that panels are basically non-operative for 3-4 months a year. This is a huge problem if you also want people to switch to efficient electric-powered heating in the form of heat pumps.

Great, if the break ground today the first nuke will be online in absolute minimum 10 years (likely 20) and cost absolute minimum of $15 billion (likely closer to $30 billion)

Do you want to guess how cheap solar will be in 10-20 years, and how much power we could generate in the mean time.

This is not a discussion worth having.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#377

Post by jf22 »

DetectDefect wrote: post #164
jf22 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because it's such a weasel "just asking questions" thing to do.

If you had a concern about the material costs of renewables you should know what they are and if you wanted to have a good faith discussion, you'd also be able to compare against legacy energy material costs.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#379

Post by testing22321 »

choeger wrote: post #232
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…

> Dad in Victoria Australia just got 10.6kw fully installed and operational for $4000 AUD. ($2,700 USD) How the heck are the panels even installed and connected for that price? That's about 25 panels, IIRC. What about the installation material and the ac/dc converter?

All covered in that price.

Government incentives. Spend tax dollars putting solar on literally every roof in the country instead of more coal or nuke plants.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#380

Post by buckle8017 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #288

It used to be the big worry among climate activists that you'd never get every country organize and move in one direction. Like you'd need some global body to clean everything up. That's very fragile. Luckily, we're moving to a world where a disjoint, self-interested response can be an advantage. Countries decide, for their own selfish reasons, to adopt green energy. For energy independence, affordability, clean air,…

Oil the west doesn't use isn't magically staying in the ground.

Middle and low income countries (most notably China) increased consumption is more than offsetting reductions from high income countries.

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