Related: The 80% Problem: Why the Energy Transition Isn't What You Think - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724535
Thanks a lot, this is eye-opening.
In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
461–470 of 809 posts
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#462The most underreported part of this story is the battery piece at the end. Batteries are beginning to displace natural gas in evening peak hours - that's the exact window where solar critics have long argued renewables fall short. If this trend accelerates (and battery prices are dropping faster than most models predicted), the "intermittency problem" starts looking more like a solvable engineering challenge than a f…
The problem with solar isn't the night. Getting enough batteries to cover that is totally doable. The issue is the winter. And not even because of fewer daylight hours - on sunny winter days there is usually still a good amount of solar. The problem is its often very cloudy in the winter. In the UK in winter we regularly have periods of 5 cloudy days in a row where solar output is virtually zero. I don't know what th…
> In a calm cloudy winter week all renewables and battery storage are totally screwed.
Hydro doesn’t really care about a calm cloudy winter week and is the reason my state was 100% renewable last year. So it’s definitely not a problem for ALL renewables.
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#463Solar 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…
>Australia has so much electricity during the day they’re talking about making I free for everyone in the middle of the day. Not just talking about it, if you get a smart meter and sign up for a plan that matches the grid rates you can actually be paid to take electricity during the day right now. If you're wondering "couldn't you just make bank with a battery" yes you can. In fact Australia dominates the world in gr…
How is it that people haven't turned to bitcoin mining (or similarly large energy dumps) during the daytime?
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
nuclear can compete if we re-learn to build on time and on budget. Japanese abwr did cost 3bn and done in <4y. China does the same now for cheaper. There's no such thing as free hydrogen, nor it will be
Even in China the case for nuclear isn't overwhelming. They are building a lot of nuclear relative to the rest of the world but its not that much compared to how much wind and solar they are deploying.
Yes. Mostly because of inland ban. Costwise their nuclear is extremely cheap, probably even cheaper than ren, but it's harder to scale (or unwillingness). But per capita they don't even match french deployments during messmer or swedish bwr units during peak
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Electricity/heating and gasoline in the EU is many times more expensive than in the U.S. Maybe because Europe as a whole has little to no signifcant oil reserves ready for extraction? Very much unlike the US. > I would think that most people would happily choose lower prices over clean energy and paper straws. The US does have plenty of cheap energy and yet its industrial output is dwarfed by Chinas, which is incre…
big part is co2 tax. EU now has neptune deep and could explore north sea too. In Germany current transition pathway of ren+gas and no nuclear was defined when Energiewende got introduced with red greens under Schroeder, a gazprom lover and later extended by red blacks
Yes, 100%.
That's part of what I meant by "green initiatives".
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#466Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#467Earlier 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.
I do time my dishwasher and washing machine to align with peak solar where I live.
I'd like to appeal to you to evolve that frame of mind. To help avoid first world problems (I can't wash a dish by hand, I need it now) devolving into third-world ones (power cuts, crop failures, torrid tropical nights on mid latitudes, mountains disintegrated).
Sometimes its important to remind we're on a generational mission, and it's not maximising Netflix time.
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#468I'm curious as to how this will shift once the shift towards more electrification continues. This is only about electricity generation, not total power consumption. Nowadays, for very energy intenive things like heating or driving a car, fossil fuels still are more prevalent than electric alternatives. Once demand shifts in favor of the electrified alternatives, electricity demand is continuing to raise (although not…
the prerequisite for fast electrification is cheap electricity. Currently many EU countries have expensive electricity for households
This is just objectively untrue. Source: I live in Germany, a country with some of the highest electricity prices, I drive a BEV and I heat my home with a heatpump. My systems SCOP hovers around 3.5, which means that my kWh of heat made from my heatpump with electricity is cheaper than my current gas rate.
My heatpump electricty bill is significantly lower as compared to my apartment (Gas furnace), despite both buildings being roughly comparable late 80s construction.
I charge my car at my standard electrcity rate of 32ct/kWh, and I pay now about half for the same usage.
Electricity is expensive, yeah. But electrified stuff is also significantly more efficient than fossil tech
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#469Curious if this will eventually change China's calculus with regards to Russia. If Europe is a big customer for Chinese exports, and Russia is antagonizing, it seems like China would have an incentive to put pressure on Russia. It already seems like Russia is positioned to be completely subservient to China in the future.
Your geopolitical views are so naive it's hard to take seriously. EU is now an unwilling dumping ground for China, hostility and paranoia are growing by the day now that China is no longer a lucrative market itself and is pursuing its interests outside commerce, the cordial days are numbered. Russia would never be subservient to China, once the war ends Russia would be back being a geopolitical player because of its…
I am certainly not an expert. What resources or military capability does Russia have that China could not eclipse, replace, or source from a partner?
What would it mean for Russia to become a "real" western country? Why would China fear that?
Whatever happens, Russia needs to sell resources to stay afloat. I have a hard believing that if it came down to it, China couldn't just seize Vladivostok.
Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Europe is a big customer for Chinese exports, and Russia is antagonizing, it seems like China would have an incentive to put pressure on Russia. China wants Russia to at least keep the Ukraine war going, if not eventually win the darn thing. Russia winning (or getting away with an armistice that lets them keep Crimea and Donbas) means a precedence China has for a land-grab of its own - obviously Taiwan, but othe…
Donbas is mostly wheat fields, Taiwan is mostly SOTA semiconductor fabs that currently are the sole pillar holding up the AI (and compute in general) zeitgeist. The global response would not be the same, even remotely. And what would China get from it? A tiny island of rubble and an ego boost, while losing enormous global favor? The cost of that island may well be a few trillion for China, just so they can say they d…
Yes, who needs food. /s