11–20 of 85 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar and wind aren't deployed rapidly across the world because of climate change; it's because they're stupid cheap compared to other generation technologies. While I'd love for more people to embrace the urgency of climate change, using economic self-interest is just as good.
Really? Please look up some references. Eg. https://jancovici.com/en/
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Germany and other nations that poured subsidies into renewables early on (and are to be commended for their economic sacrifice for doing so) are outliers. The rest of the world caught up as soon as renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels. Capital markets don't have feelings. Humanity lucked out that solar and wind costs were driven down as rapidly as they were through manufacturing scale. We'd be screwed otherwise…
> Humanity lucked out Humanity didn't luck out. The Chinese communists invested heavily in solar while the US was wasting money on fracking.
Interesting I have friends and family who work at sand mines that supply the sand for fracking. The companies they work for are still expanding and they have more overtime available than they can take. I'm not sure on the long term future of fracking but in the short 5-10 year span it doesn't appear to be going away based on how much infrastructure these companies are adding right now and how much land they're buying…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany and other nations that poured subsidies into renewables early on (and are to be commended for their economic sacrifice for doing so) are outliers. The rest of the world caught up as soon as renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels. Capital markets don't have feelings. Humanity lucked out that solar and wind costs were driven down as rapidly as they were through manufacturing scale. We'd be screwed otherwise…
> Humanity lucked out Humanity didn't luck out. The Chinese communists invested heavily in solar while the US was wasting money on fracking.
Solar is amazing, but isn’t the be all end all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany and other nations that poured subsidies into renewables early on (and are to be commended for their economic sacrifice for doing so) are outliers. The rest of the world caught up as soon as renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels. Capital markets don't have feelings. Humanity lucked out that solar and wind costs were driven down as rapidly as they were through manufacturing scale. We'd be screwed otherwise…
> Humanity lucked out Humanity didn't luck out. The Chinese communists invested heavily in solar while the US was wasting money on fracking.
There's some data that indicates volumes drop off pretty dramatically over time at the individual well level. If this is true, then it requires perpetual investment of new capital in new wells just to maintain constant production volumes.
The public data isn't great because old wells are mixed in with new wells and so it's hard to see how production changes with the age of the well.
Here's an example from Bakken https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/historicalbakkenoilstats...
You can see that in 2016 the total number of producing wells didn't change much, which probably means new wells weren't being drilled, so the data is mostly from older wells. Daily production per well drops quickly from month to month.
Then in 2017 and 2018 the growth rate in total wells more than doubles, and the production per well also increases, probably because new wells produce much more than existing wells.
If this is true, then it looks like the shale boom is sustained by heavy investment of fresh capital. When interest rates rise or credit dries up, the shale boom could quickly turn to bust.
Interesting I have friends and family who work at sand mines that supply the sand for fracking. The companies they work for are still expanding and they have more overtime available than they can take. I'm not sure on the long term future of fracking but in the short 5-10 year span it doesn't appear to be going away based on how much infrastructure these companies are adding right now and how much land they're buying…
Prediction: this piece is just fearmongering, in 1-2 years we will see fracking increase, not decrease.