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Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

seanobannon.substack.com

171–180 of 187 posts

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#171
post #159
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Argentina, so my belief in "the system" is that it's comprehensively rigged. Also, a friend of mine was raped by the police under the US-backed last Argentine dictatorship, so I'm not super enthusiastic about dictatorships like the PRC, nor about LatAm being inside the US's sphere of influence. This dumping stuff is nonsense. If you investigate more deeply than reading PR, you'll come to the same conclusion…

China's trade abuses are insane. Firstly, china has better than 80% marketshare. Most people agree that a monopoly of this size is net corrosive to innovation and competition. What's more, china massively subsidizes industries she prefers. Both in terms of direct subsidies, but also in that the PBOC can direct any and all banks through the country to offer privileged terms on loans or capital. This often doesn't fact…

Your last two paragraphs are almost perfect satire.

Renewables don't work. Nuclear is much easier. It's the environmentalists at fault. LCOE is notoriously bad. Storage doesn't work.

Also, you're angry at people who are head in the sand denialists who don't realise or care that America is under threat.

The person you're discussing this with is totally correct. America is throwing away it's future with this approach to energy. And you are a perfect avatar of the people enthusiasticly commiting this self-destruction.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#172
post #161
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is China that is imperialist and that has ruined the post cold war free trade world order. The US must respond or China will be the world hegemon. The USA is the current imperial power, go ask us born in South America how it felt to listen to stories on dictatorships brought on by the imperialism of the USA; or societies having to bend for the spread of Reagan's economics cancer dismantling any semblance of soci…

Every nation tries to influence her neighbors to be more accommodating of her wants and needs. We just happen to be bigger and better at doing it. Speaking historically, and relative to other past and present world powers, y'all are far better off living near America. It is completely reasonable that we wouldn't put up with leaders objectively hostile to our interests popping up in our backyard, not after the last on…

> Every nation tries to influence her neighbors to be more accommodating of her wants and needs. We just happen to be bigger and better at doing it. Speaking historically, and relative to other past and present world powers, y'all are far better off living near America.

So... Imperialism is your God given right? No questions about what millions of people would have preferred to live under, in their sovereignty, in their freedom? Got it. Every action has a reaction.

> It is completely reasonable that we wouldn't put up with leaders objectively hostile to our interests popping up in our backyard, not after the last one who did got within a hair's breadth of planting nuclear missiles a hundred miles off our coast.

It's not reasonable you'd prop up dictatorships who went to kill thousands, destroy the democratic process for generations of millions of people which in turn created an environment where aftershocks of these dictatorships left whole nations with a fragile democracy, and populations with very little tradition in civics. Because you were scared of another ideology.

It might be reasonable for you, from your point of view as a citizen of an imperial power; for the ones subjugated by this it only created resentment.

> Are you suggesting we were wrong to transfer technology out of Germany post-WWII? To me it seems like a hell of a lot better as some form of repayment than the onerous reparations regime we tried post-WWI. Vae victis; if all millions of American dead cost Germany were some scientists and patents, they should count themselves lucky.

No, I'm saying you were wrong in fucking over the Brits, the Tizard Mission went to the USA to forge an alliance where advanced technology developed by the UK could be worked together between UK-USA, instead of being a partner the USA simply stole the technology for itself while the UK was being beaten down by Nazis, an opportunistic parasite move. Not only that but the USA also cut off British scientists and engineers from the Manhattan Project, after all the contributions done to bring your atomic weapons into play, the one thing that catapulted the USA's hegemony into power.

> Saying America "stole" JPL from Avro is also a crazy interpretation. The Arrow was an incredibly expensive project: canada had about 20 million people at the time and was in terrible economic shape. Diefenbaker's decision remains controversial, and most people agree that destroying the project so thoroughly was just stupid, but you can't support the idea that we "stole" something from Canada or somehow compelled her to kill the project.

America forced the dismantling of Avro, even if the Arrow project was expensive it was the USA forcing Canada to give up on Avro, in its downfall came the USA to steal brains to work on JPL, and take you to the moon.

Your country is great at stealing others' tech through economical pressure: stealing brains by promising money, stealing technology when it's convenient, and I'm tired of reading Americans complaining about China's IP theft because it's absurdly hypocritical. You gotta learn your own country's history.

As an imperial power I believe your time is coming to past, your ideology is not holding anymore as a force to propel humanity forward, it did make the world better for a while but for the past 40 years it's been only a slow downfall... If you travel around the USA you can feel it, how dated everything looks, how badly society actually doesn't work, the decay of it is quite palpable.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#173
post #170
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are Lazard's 2024 LCOE numbers, a popular reference (though they're often too generous regarding renewables). https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-... You will notice that utility PV and CCGT are relatively similar in cost. Of course, replacing most of our energy infrastructure would have massive capex that one would add to the solar option. Note that the solar numbers do not include the c…

Unfortunately this PDF doesn't explain Lazard's calculations, so it won't convince anyone who employs any critical thinking. Key factors like types of PV panels, whether tariffs are included or excluded, to what extent the panels' peak capacity exceeds the inverters' capacity (if at all), interest rates, etc., are not provided at all. Capacity factor is only mentioned as a broad range, with no mention of factors like…

The graph on page 17 tracks the historical costs and shows a massive blip for the top of the price range over the last two years, even as the low end continues the trend of dropping lower.

It's really only that last couple of years top end that lets the comparison to gas prices stand. Without it, the document clearly shows that building new solar is as cheap as buying the gas to burn in an existing gas plant.

I think Lazard cost estimated have always been US specific, though I didn't see that spelled out explicitly at a glance.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#174
post #172
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every nation tries to influence her neighbors to be more accommodating of her wants and needs. We just happen to be bigger and better at doing it. Speaking historically, and relative to other past and present world powers, y'all are far better off living near America. It is completely reasonable that we wouldn't put up with leaders objectively hostile to our interests popping up in our backyard, not after the last on…

> Every nation tries to influence her neighbors to be more accommodating of her wants and needs. We just happen to be bigger and better at doing it. Speaking historically, and relative to other past and present world powers, y'all are far better off living near America. So... Imperialism is your God given right? No questions about what millions of people would have preferred to live under, in their sovereignty, in th…

> kill thousands

Small nitpick: It would be more accurate to count these victims in figures of hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions. The Indonesian mass killings of 1965-1966 alone, conducted under the imprimatur of the CIA, resulted in the deaths of 500,000-1,000,000 people, and perhaps even more. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_19...

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with markets solving basic human needs as long as the incentives are properly aligned.

Company and customer incentives are fundamentally not aligned. Companies want to maximize profit and minimize cost, while customers want as much as possible for the lowest price.

And companies have to compete for customers on cost, which yields an equilibrium that works out well for customers on most goods and services. This is well established at this point.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#176
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with markets solving basic human needs as long as the incentives are properly aligned.

Yes it does, because it leaves the fulfillment of those necessities to the whims of the market. If suddenly an endeavour is not profitable any more, or is simply less profitable than an alternative, what happens? You have to subsidise it, at great cost, leaving you at the mercy of those privatised concerns. Neither public services nor private enterprise is a silver bullet to everything.

> If suddenly an endeavour is not profitable any more, or is simply less profitable than an alternative, what happens?

They pivot or they slowly die.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with markets solving basic human needs as long as the incentives are properly aligned.

How does one properly align the incentives of people and corporations?

Private goods and club goods are provided by markets because incentives are already aligned.

Public goods and common goods need artificial markets created by regulatory frameworks.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Company and customer incentives are fundamentally not aligned. Companies want to maximize profit and minimize cost, while customers want as much as possible for the lowest price.

And companies have to compete for customers on cost, which yields an equilibrium that works out well for customers on most goods and services. This is well established at this point.

It is not well established at this point. I get the impression you're reading a textbook on economics, and not how it works in the real world.

Take covid inflation for example. Covid caused supply chain issues which then caused a temporary bout of inflation, however, companies took this as an opportunity to increase their profit margins more than they need to. They specifically bragged about this in quarterly earnings calls.

If companies truly compete on cost then how does stuff like that happen? Shouldn't it have been corrected by now? But that's not what we see, we see companies continue to increase prices with little consequence.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And companies have to compete for customers on cost, which yields an equilibrium that works out well for customers on most goods and services. This is well established at this point.

It is not well established at this point. I get the impression you're reading a textbook on economics, and not how it works in the real world. Take covid inflation for example. Covid caused supply chain issues which then caused a temporary bout of inflation, however, companies took this as an opportunity to increase their profit margins more than they need to. They specifically bragged about this in quarterly earning…

> It is not well established at this point. I get the impression you're reading a textbook on economics, and not how it works in the real world.

You're writing this from the comfort of your home where you're enjoying the fruits of the most significant quality of life improvements over 200 years. Hedonistic adaptation has blinded you to all of the evidence that's staring in the face, like the screen you're reading on right now.

> however, companies took this as an opportunity to increase their profit margins more than they need to. They specifically bragged about this in quarterly earnings calls.

Temporary aberrations from extreme disruptions do not refute the general rule.

Re: Deregulated energy markets accelerate solar adoption

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's basically zero insulation in all homes. This is completely false.

Well all I can talk about is the 1970s-era boxes that dominate in the Bay Area, which is the major population center that PG&E serves. If your experience with these homes is different somehow, let me know. But go to SF, go to the peninsula, and you'll find that most homes barely stop air coming in and out of the house, much less have proper insulation. A blower test for SF homes would shock most people in the modern…

In LA sure, you can get away with minimal insulation. SF is a different story. That city is shockingly cold. An uninsulated house in SF is wasting loads of energy.
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