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Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

sciencemag.org

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Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#381

Post by RhodesianHunter »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

You're assuming improvements in efficiency will necessarily lead to a decrease in cost.

The Jevons paradox tells us that this increase in efficiency may well lead to more demand instead.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#382

Post by RhodesianHunter »

sagarm wrote: post #335
asdkhadsj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US needs to heavily encourage these sorts of improvements to buildings, it's good for everyone. Is it though? I imagine your landlord doesn't think it's good for them. It's not bad for them, but why would they spend hundreds or thousands of dollars improving your apartments insulation when it costs them nothing to keep the poor thermal in place. I too lived in rentals that had terrible thermal protection. It wa…

Require landlords to pay for heat? That would align incentives somewhat, though then the tenant has no incentive to be efficient. A 50/50 split might work, since landlord is responsible for energy efficiency of the home and the tenant is responsible for setting the thermostat sanely?

1. Move into home like this

2. Set up Bitcoin mining rig

3. Profit, since you only have to pay half of the utility bill

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#383

Post by bagacrap »

rmuesi wrote: post #84

I’ve always wondered about something, yet have never found anyone discussing it online. So maybe some smart people can help me out: a lot of people install solar on their rooftops. Much of the time this is done with the assumption that it will pay off financially because energy prices are currently at a certain rate and will continue to rise. But here’s my question: If its financially advantageous to install solar on…

For a long time the government subsidized rooftop solar which boosted the economics beyond utility scale efficiency.

-random guess

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#384

Post by tim333 »

emanuensis wrote: post #215

Much better than batteries or gravity storage mechanisms is liquid air storage. It is not for small scale sites, but the bigger, the more economical, it becomes. As an OTS (off the shelf) solution i do not know why it is not used more... Liquid air storage offers cheapest route to 24 hour wind and solar https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20424313

It's often not very efficient in terms of getting back the energy you put in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic_energy_storage#Effic...

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#385

Post by [deleted] »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #344
kragen wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, personal loans from banks routinely charge much higher interest rates than commercial paper. Think about the interest rate on a money market account, which consists of bonds. That's the rate PG&E is going to pay if they float a bond issue to build a solar power station. Large companies, particularly including electric generation utilities, can also get loans from banks at similarly low interest rates…

> This is precisely the genius of SolarCity: they were able to use the low interest rates banks would charge them to install solar power on people's houses at a much lower cost of capital than the same banks would have charged the same homeowners without SolarCity's intermediation. That sounds like a pretty interesting pitch as a business model. But if I recall correctly, SolarCity failed and had to be bailed out by,…

[deleted]

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#386

Post by Dumblydorr »

gregable wrote: post #341
Chirael wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If two or three tenants in a row move out and cite sky high power costs due to poor insulation as the reason, the landlord will notice and do something about it. One tenant is a fluke, several all saying the same thing over a few years is a problem that will get dealt with. Nothing costs a landlord money like high turnover. But departing tenants DO need to communicate that as the issue, otherwise the landlord would n…

Do tenants really decide like that? Moving is costly and insulation is hard to judge on a tour?

In providence RI my friends and I rented a 3 BR 2nd floor of a duplex. The heating cost was insanity. The rent itself was 1350 per month and the oil heating in the winter cost us 3600, which is 100 per month added onto my 450 share for the entire year. I left that year, my roomies stayed and begged the landlord to switch, the oil heater was wicked old and inefficient. He said no, he didn't care. They moved due to that. So yes, it did cost him, probly the months worth of rent that he lost due to the realtors finders fee.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#387

Post by Dumblydorr »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #382
sagarm wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Require landlords to pay for heat? That would align incentives somewhat, though then the tenant has no incentive to be efficient. A 50/50 split might work, since landlord is responsible for energy efficiency of the home and the tenant is responsible for setting the thermostat sanely?

1. Move into home like this 2. Set up Bitcoin mining rig 3. Profit, since you only have to pay half of the utility bill

4. Lose profits when landlord charges you for excessive use

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#388

Post by Dumblydorr »

boringg wrote: post #266
haroldp wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Localizing our entire energy dependence has got to have some serious national security benefits. It's estimated that we spent $6.8T between 1976 and 2007 on the US policy of always maintaining an Aircraft Carrier on station all day every day in the Persian Gulf, to insure the free flow of oil. https://offiziere.ch/wp-content/uploads/US-miiltary-cost-of-...

Oil and Gas indirect subsidies ;)

Not to mention the 3 military conflicts in the region we were involved in because...oil. At least now we have shale oil of our own to pollute with...yay?

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#389

Post by Dumblydorr »

nexuist wrote: post #118
DubiousPusher wrote: post #70

> the cost to decarbonize the U.S. grid alone would be $4.5 trillion They make this sound like a lot but that strikes me as actually pretty cheap. I don't think that number can be right. Edit: I mean seriously think. The F-35 has cost us 1.45 trillion dollars so far. That's roughly 1/3 of the price they're asserting here. Localizing our entire energy dependence has got to have some serious national security benefits.…

>Localizing our entire energy dependence has got to have some serious national security benefits It would also cause extreme instability by shooting up unemployment, destroying large corporations that offered valuable careers with good benefits, and exacerbate polarization between those who believe in man made climate change and those who don't. Don't get me wrong - I think energy independence is the way to go - but…

Renewables are already cheaper than most fossil fuels. No further research is needed. We can use current tech to displace everything except the more efficient LNG. Natural cost declines will eventually overtake LNG but for now we can replace coal and peakers quite economically, especially if fossil fuels weren't much more heavily subsidized than renewables.

Re: Giant batteries and cheap solar power are shoving fossil fuels off the grid

#390

Post by Dumblydorr »

colechristensen wrote: post #207
ourmandave wrote: post #81

Meanwhile in Iowa, Mid American Energy is well on their way to 100% renewal by 2021 with an endless array of wind farms. Their final phase of the project started in 2018 with a $922M investment. Iowa Public Radio toured one of the windmills back in January. https://www.iowapublicradio.org/post/skyscrapers-fields-wind...

I wonder how people would feel about ethanol plants fired by wind farms. The one built near my family home is coal fired and the idea of growing crops to be turned into car fuel is ... less appealing. But if you had electric or ethanol powered tractors growing biomass to ferment and distill into more ethanol with a plant fired with wind, maybe there are some different environmental considerations there. For one it wo…

Its just much much less efficient than going straight from wind into EV batteries.
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