Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 642 posts

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#391

Post by atombender »

willis936 wrote: post #174
dsr_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The House of Saud has a plan. It isn't going quite as well as they had hoped, but it's going. Aramco was IPO'd. They wanted a trillion dollar valuation, and didn't get it. The next step is to sell that stock before the oil market collapses, preferably leaving themselves with a lot of cash and a minority stake in a much smaller company. Cash is going into technology stocks, venture funds, and international real estate…

Who is going to buy a trillion dollar stake in a shrinking market?

One of the fascinating observations in Carlota Perez's "Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages" [1] is that outdated technological industries continued to provide superior returns even after they'd been supplanted. You'd have more money today if you'd invested in Exxon in the mid 1970s than if you'd put the money in IBM, even though Exxon has slipped from the top 10 to something like 40th place in the S&P. Meanwhile, railroads peaked at 60% of the US stock market around 1860, shrinking to less 2%, yet continued to beat the market for the next 120 years. Discussed recently on the Rational Reminder [2] podcast.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Revolutions-Financial-C...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEwwtjDo1dU

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#392

Post by newyankee »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #289
mrfusion wrote: post #179

I hate the argument that we’re just waiting for batteries now. I think if we had variable pricing that matched the availability of renewables, consumers would shift quickly. Say something like power costs .02/kWh while the sun is shining and .30 when it’s not. I’d charge my car at work. I’d put a timer on my dryer to turn on at 10am. They probably come out with a hot water heater that goes really hot during the day a…

It's going to be both. Tesla is working hard on mass-producing more affordable batteries. At the level of individuals it's already worthwhile. For 20K you can have enough Powerwall batteries to power your home when the sun isn't shining. 20K isn't that much on a 300-500K house. Competition will come and the price will come down more. Couple that with automated buying/selling of renewable power at different times of t…

CATL, BYD, LG Chem , Panasonic and numerous new entrants stepping up their game due to Tesla competition. Hope there is cooperation too.

India without any Li ion manufacturer is trying very hard to get at least 1 or 2 off the ground with production linked incentives and a few business houses have entered.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#393

Post by Krasnol »

puranjay wrote: post #374
rtx wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why we should be exclusively nuclear.

Hear hear. We need a massive pro-nuclear public campaign. When people think of "nuclear power", they just think of Chernobyl. In hindsight, Chernobyl might have done more harm to the planet than we thought - it single handedly turned public opinion against nuclear power, and all the clean energy it provides. One wonders if we would have any of our current climate issues if we had adopted nuclear power en masse in the…

When political decision makers and investors think of "nuclear power", they just think of overdue and over budget projects that may be finished in a decade.

In a decade renewables will be so far ahead that it would be plain stupid to push nuclear. This is why it's not happening outside a lobby group from the industry who try to push shady people like Michael Shellenberger.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#394

Post by tommilukkarinen »

The article shows how competition and increased demand drop the solar and wind price. How obvious when you think about it, technologies that are based on building plants have limited competition, or even legislation that prevents competition, so there is no similar drive for price. While panels can be made anywhere and installed by normal people.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#395

Post by freewilly1040 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #390
ashtonkem wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi needs to do one of two things before the oil runs out: 1) Diversify their economy 2) Build up enough sovereign wealth to maintain their citizens standard of living after the oil has run out. The first is very hard, because huge percentages of their population are completely disengaged from the economy. It's estimated that 30-40% of working age adults neither have a job, nor are looking for one. An unusually hig…

Oil is not running out in Saudi Arabia anytime soon. They have reserves underneath their desert land equal to over 200 years' worth of current consumption. [0] What they need to do is stop pumping it, and soon, otherwise climate change will cook us all. --- [0]: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/saudi-arabia-oil/

At this point it seems demand for oil will run out before supply

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#396

Post by redisman »

m463 wrote: post #246
discordance wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel" - Saeed Al Maktoum

> ...his son will ride a camel I wonder if in the future, camels will be owned and/or ridden only by very wealthy individuals. (like many horses nowadays)

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#397

Post by ampdepolymerase »

ashtonkem wrote: post #377
dsr_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The House of Saud has a plan. It isn't going quite as well as they had hoped, but it's going. Aramco was IPO'd. They wanted a trillion dollar valuation, and didn't get it. The next step is to sell that stock before the oil market collapses, preferably leaving themselves with a lot of cash and a minority stake in a much smaller company. Cash is going into technology stocks, venture funds, and international real estate…

Saudi needs to do one of two things before the oil runs out: 1) Diversify their economy 2) Build up enough sovereign wealth to maintain their citizens standard of living after the oil has run out. The first is very hard, because huge percentages of their population are completely disengaged from the economy. It's estimated that 30-40% of working age adults neither have a job, nor are looking for one. An unusually hig…

Why isn't anyone studying the Arabic states as UBI models? Incompatibility with western democracy? They are the closest to a large scale UBI system right now. Much bigger than those toy hundred people sort-of-UBI-but-not-really experiments.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#398

Post by PeterisP »

dsr_ wrote: post #159
rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

The House of Saud has a plan. It isn't going quite as well as they had hoped, but it's going. Aramco was IPO'd. They wanted a trillion dollar valuation, and didn't get it. The next step is to sell that stock before the oil market collapses, preferably leaving themselves with a lot of cash and a minority stake in a much smaller company. Cash is going into technology stocks, venture funds, and international real estate…

On the other hand, right now the house of Saud needs their lands and citizens because their oil wealth comes from there - but if it runs out, they might as well abandon them and relocate with their wealth (as a monarchy, it's their personal wealth, not the country citizens') anywhere they want and leave the ordinary people in the desert.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#399

Post by ec109685 »

ozborn wrote: post #315
nordsieck wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It means that countries which rely on fossil fuels for their economy, are going to see the same kind of crushing economic decline that, say, the UK coal industry has. > What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death? First, I think you have to segregate between different kinds of fossil fuels. Coal is the worst. From what I under…

Agree, except for I think natural gas for homes (cooling and heating) should be phased out sooner. Letting gas companies build new pipe infrastructure to new homes in warmer climates where induction cooking and heat pumps will do the job just fine is crazy. They are an easy, painless way to reduce carbon emissions and much cheaper for society now. Also likely cheaper for the home owner of the future as gas prices get…

San Jose, CA is phasing out gas in new homes.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#400

Post by redisman »

Qwertious wrote: post #296
rossdavidh wrote: post #145

All true, but I think they're missing the real issue here. Renewables (esp. solar and wind) are, yes, dropping in cost exponentially, and this means they are currently zooming past fossil fuels in terms of affordability. There's an issue in regards to batteries, but that also seems to be on a learning curve that makes it better every year, so that won't buy fossil fuels much more time. Now, instead of rooting for tha…

>What do you suppose happens when, for example, Saudi Arabia can no longer feed itself? It just peacefully and gently starves to death? Saudi Arabia has a sovereign wealth fund with trillions of dollars. The obvious answer is that they'll build a ton of renewables and build a ton of [hydroponic/aquaponic/aeroponic/etc] farms to make food locally. Indoor farming is expensive but very water-efficient, which suits Saudi…

They have a lot of money to invest and they could also export solar if they want to stay in the energy business. Lots of sunlight there.
Post reply on HN