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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

#101

Post by throwaway_45 »

WarmWash wrote: post #66
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

Earlier 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…

China is playing the long game. They can go spend a trillion bucks and hire/steal the tech and they could destroy Taiwan's competitive advantage, and they could just economically crush them.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#102

Post by toomuchtodo »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #97
kokey wrote: post #47

Every time, over the years, that there has been some kind of headline saying renewables have overtaken fossil fuels, when you look at it a bit more closely there is always a big 'but'. For example, it was compared to coal (not taking into account electricity from gas), or it was for one day, or it was a percentage of new installations, or it excludes winter, includes nuclear etc. This time, however, it looks like it'…

How much did Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine and nat gas price and supply changes accelerate things?

Ember Energy: European electricity prices and costs - https://ember-energy.org/data/european-electricity-prices-an... (updated daily)

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#103

Post by ricardo81 »

kieranmaine wrote: post #81
ricardo81 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is blessed with cheap energy, the abundance of hydro surely helps to bridge any intermittency other renewables have. I lived there 10 years back, your energy is less than half the cost of mine in Scotland. In Scotland's case we're part of the UK and the rest of the UK is less blessed with the geography for hydro. The incumbent Scottish government also has an anti stance to nuclear. I hope the incentives for cl…

Related to UK energy I read this interesting article on transmission congestion between Scotland and England and how this is increasing energy costs due to curtailment of renewables. https://ukerc.ac.uk/news/transmission-network-unavailability... TL;DR - Until new interconnectors between Scotland and England are finished in 2029, there will be significant curtailment of Scottish wind power which increases costs. This…

It has been a long standing problem.

Ideas crop up like generating hydrogen with the curtailed energy or maybe at least in Winter, use it for heat generation. The problem would seem to be the capex and the inverse of intermittency being the problem for them in utilising that energy, i.e. waiting for curtailment.

At least with available hydro you can pump water back up hill using a reliable and cheap tech.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#104

Post by cies »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #97
kokey wrote: post #47

Every time, over the years, that there has been some kind of headline saying renewables have overtaken fossil fuels, when you look at it a bit more closely there is always a big 'but'. For example, it was compared to coal (not taking into account electricity from gas), or it was for one day, or it was a percentage of new installations, or it excludes winter, includes nuclear etc. This time, however, it looks like it'…

How much did Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine and nat gas price and supply changes accelerate things?

[flagged]

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#105

Post by DetectDefect »

csoups14 wrote: post #72
DetectDefect wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, okay. Does a warranty cover sweeping snow off your panels and washing them many times throughout the years? I guess if one does not value time, then solar panels could be considered "free" - but this is a bizarre sacrifice.

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.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#106

Post by mekdoonggi »

doublerabbit wrote: post #73
mekdoonggi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? You've got abundant wind and solar. Once installed, even if for some reason you can't get new turbines or panels, you'll still have a decent amount of capacity.

Solar is hit & miss. The only capacity we really have is wind and those are only efficient to those near the sea or in the highlands. England, Scotland, Wales are governed by rain 80% of the year and with the sun we get, household solar rarely breaks even. Just because we've got, if the government isn't supporting it's pretty much wasted. The renewable farms we do have are mostly funded by private investments firms.…

A quick search says the UK produced 18,314 GWh of solar last year. And this was mostly funded by private investment? It seems like for some infrastructure investment, the government is getting long-term renewable power. If the solar isn't making money, why is it growing 30% annually?

What is stupid about nuclear? It's a huge amount of clean, secure energy.

Would your preference be dependence on Russian/US oil natural gas? Would you feel the same if Russia invaded Finland/Baltics and US took over Greenland?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#107

Post by account42 »

dyauspitr wrote: post #94
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…

What is the underlying reason in the US though? You would think if they are artificially inflated prices the market would fix that. What I’ve found is that a large part of the cost is the actual labor for the installation, how are other developed countries getting around this?

Mostly by giving people free money to install them so they go on the internet to say how cheap they are.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#108

Post by cromka »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #89
testing22321 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price of panels is falling so fast I don’t think anyone truly understands. I paid nearly double that for our 450w panels 18 months ago.

They are cheaper than fencing material, and will continue to decline in price.

And, credit where credit is due, it's all thanks to China.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#109

Post by AnotherGoodName »

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…

>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 grid connected storage (per capita) and this chart itself is actually out of date (it's growing even faster than shown).

https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/top-20-countries-by-ba...

I'll also point out that gas and oil generation has declined rapidly.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-rise-of-battery-storage-and-...

For anyone that thinks renewables can't phase out peaker plants it happens very naturally and rapidly once there's enough solar to set rates negative in the day.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#110

Post by otterley »

DetectDefect wrote: post #76
lostlogin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this maintenance schedule from? I haven’t touched ours, they are clean and have been going fine with zero maintenance, though admittedly it’s only been a year.

> I haven’t touched ours, they are clean and have been going fine with zero maintenance, though admittedly it’s only been a year. > Where are you getting this maintenance schedule from? The solar panel owner does not know the required maintenance they are now permanently responsible for. Ibid, your honor.

You’re being extremely argumentative all over the comments to this story. Do you yourself own any solar panels? Your ceaseless naysaying constantly contradicts people’s lived experience (including mine) as owners.

Focus on solutions, not trying to be right. It’s aggravating.

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