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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

#441

Post by tonyarkles »

SamPatt wrote: post #253
youngtaff wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 energy usage is renewable. Tell that to places like Pakistan where solar is allowing people to have cheaper electricity without connecting to the grid

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.

Keep in mind the standard of living. If you’re in a country that experiences routine long power outages, having a solar panel that you can use to charge your phone during the day is pretty great. Having to get ahold of and burn diesel fuel is not so great. Doesn’t produce at night? Doesn’t matter much, it’s better than nothing.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#442

Post by simion314 »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #264
simion314 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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 roads. "Yet you participate in society, c…

Public transport uses the roads too. In my country Romania there are road taxes included in the fuel prices and there are vehicle tax that is proportionalw itht eh engine size and vehicle age and how mych it pollutes. So people that drive more use more fuel and pay more tax. If you use your bike then you will not pay that taxes, now what should we tax for the bike lanes ? And how should we convert he fuel road tax for electric cars ?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#443

Post by phil21 »

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.

I think the inverse has proven to be largely true. If a home that uses effectively net-zero power is still connected the grid, it becomes a liability to grid stablity and expense.

There still needs to be enough power to supply to all those homes in the event of a protracted time where solar is unavailable. It gets less applicable as homes start to get multi-day battery banks installed, but those are incredibly rare since they are too expensive.

The whole "wealthy homeowners get subsidized solar and then effectively free backup power paid for by everyone else" needs to end.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#444

Post by csoups14 »

DetectDefect wrote: post #105
csoups14 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got solar panels installed two years ago and I've washed them once. I'm still getting great production. Are you trying to convince yourself that maintaining solar panels is difficult? Because it isn't.

> I got solar panels installed two years ago > I've washed them once. > I'm still getting great production. Thank you for reiterating my point.

So let me get this straight, I save hundreds of dollars a month, I drive my cars "for free", I get paid at the end of my net-metering year, and somehow this is a bad deal because I've wanted (not needed) to wash my panels once? It sounds like you optimize your life around not maintaining the things around you which is fine, but I'd much rather save thousands of dollars.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#445

Post by eigenspace »

Moldoteck wrote: post #359
eigenspace wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a constant oversupply because then you'd never need the hydrogen in the first place. H2 economics (if they ever work) will work in a place where there's a seasonal gradient in energy production that's over too long a time horizon for batteries.

Per lazard, currently, merely 25% green H2 peakers would provide power for as expensive as worst nuclear project in US- Vogtle. So a mere 1/4 mix is as bad as a terribly mismanaged construction project. H2 economics for electricity are non existent. It will be used fo other sectors maybe, like fertilizers

Look, I don't really want to be in the position of defending H2 here as I'm not particularly confident or optimistic about it, but I'm not really currently seeing a better alternative for seasonal energy shifting.

If Germany was willing to build new nuclear power plants I'd be potentially in favour, but it's not going to to happen, so H2 will likely be the way, and it won't be cheap.

That said, I also invite you to go look at cost estimates for batteries from just 5 years ago and compare them to today, or solar / wind cost estimates from 15 years ago. Those technologies have experienced significant reductions in cost due to scale and industrial learning.

IMO the biggest problem with H2 is that similar sorts of learning / scaling processes simply won't even start until the grid evolves to a point where the seasonal demand shifting is actually required, but by then it's essentially too late. And there's not really any hope of governments kickstarting the learning process with artificial demand because people will make all sorts convincing arguments for why it's a stupid waste.

So I guess we'll see what happens. Perhaps stuff like fertilizer and steel will help the technology matures before the grid needs it, or perhaps battery technology will surprise us again, or someone will figure out how to make flow batteries work or whatever. I'm not particularly confident in any of these technologies, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens I guess.

Something *does* need to be done about storage though, even with all the complementary wind-solar and giant Lithium or Sodium battery installations, and all the HVDC you could want.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#446

Post by matthewdgreen »

toyg wrote: post #283
danny_codes wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is a classic case of underestimating how far manufacturing improvements can get you on the cost scale. You see a promising technology in the lab and it’s hard to imagine a 1 million x reduction in price, yet we see that time and time again as tech gets scaled out. What’s wild to me is how the US is leaving itself in the dust. How the GOP imagines we’ll be competitive when the rest of the world can produce el…

> ow the GOP imagines we’ll be competitive when the rest of the world can produce electricity 10x cheaper By forcing oil prices to get 10x cheaper, at the barrel of a gun. See: Venezuela and Iran. Will it work? I would not bet on it.

Seems unlikely that we'll be selling oil for $5, unless fossil fuels are completely replaced and it becomes a side-of-the-road novelty.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#447

Post by andsoitis »

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.

Are you saying that because you assert cost is driven up “artificially” by taxes or other structural headwinds? Or are you saying that fossils enjoy an advantage due to lopsided subsidies? Or something else?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#448

Post by matthewdgreen »

epolanski wrote: post #409
bee_rider wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intermittence really has always had the flavor of an engineering problem instead of a physics problem (it is about putting the energy when/where humans want it, rather than having enough of it). IMO load shifting seems like a cleverer and more engineer-y solution. Imagine a giant smart system where all of our appliances talk to each-other and can optimize the timings of their workloads. It’s a magnificent society-wid…

I ain't gonna use the dishwasher when the system wants me to, but when I can or want. I pay low energy prices during night than day, that's normal, but I'm still not gonna do laundry at 9 pm, I'd rather pay the 10/20 cents more during the day.

A typical dishwasher load requires 1-3kWh, so you'll just use your home battery and do it whenever you want.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#449

Post by idiotsecant »

vondur wrote: post #278
dataviz1000 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Residential solar is completely counter-productive right now in california. Just take a look at the CAISO price maps during the day when the sun is shining. There's so much power they are paying people to consume it. It's a negative force for grid stability. Getting paid for making the grid less stable is ridiculous. Until there is widespread battery storage or massively improved transmission and distribution systems grid-tied residential solar is a solution in search of a problem.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#450

Post by dyauspitr »

testing22321 wrote: post #402
dyauspitr wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this on his roof? Were there government subsidies?

Yes and yes Australia is spending tax dollars to get solar on every roof in the country instead of building coal or nuke plants. Now people are getting free power as a result.

I wish we did that.
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