41–45 of 45 posts
The actual answer to this is "target" monetary inflation. That is, increasing the money supply at a slightly faster rate than the increase in productivity makes prices rise at a fixed pace.
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I've read through his thesis on his blog. There are several flaws in his analysis. The most glaring is in the cost of natural gas, for which he uses the most pessimistic value possible (that during the Ukraine war shortages) and then compares it to the most optimistic price of solar. A fairer comparison would take the cost of production and shipping of gas (which is very cheap) and compare that to the cost of synthet…
When you're projecting future costs of solar, you should be using very optimistic estimates, right?
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No. Parent directly challenged the model because of thermodynamic loss and expense v. substitutes. E-fuels is contingent on subsidies, and you can't just wand away costs with a renewables price decline. These plants require firmed up renewables supply shape that a solar or wind farm can't provide alone. What's that mean? $$$ Another thing, most of the metal in these facilities doesn't have a price decline curve. The…
First, they did not seem to make a thermodynamic loss argument. They made that argument for vertical farming versus regular farming to argue that the inputs to regular farming are cheaper because they are not harvesting solar energy with extra steps. That is a perfectly cogent argument because the inputs are the same in both cases. You can not make the same argument for solar energy versus drilling costs without maki…
You're missing the point.
Power-to-X fuels are fundamentally energy destructive versus alternatives. And feedstock cost prices declining enough to achieve fuel price parity isn't a safe bet. That's the parent's argument.
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Terraform is baiting people with very optimistic cost structures. They're promising $2.5/kg H2 and DAC at $250/ton CO2. These figures are astronomically low. Then, wait-- it's for 1MW of PV electric supply. That's not scale. This facility can turn on/off when the sun is/isn't shining? Anything to solve that is more money.
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> renewable energy armpit armpit? What is that supposed to mean exactly? (I consider myself a near native English speaker...) A bad place to be in I suppose, but never heard this phasing.
I assume least desirable place in this context. Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/armpit
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This has considerable geopolitical implications. Fossil fuels are very mobile, so one can be flexible in siting energy-intensive industries. But in a solar world, heavy industry will be at those places with the best solar resource. If you live in a renewable energy armpit, like say the eastern parts of Europe, your heavy industry is out of luck.
> renewable energy armpit armpit? What is that supposed to mean exactly? (I consider myself a near native English speaker...) A bad place to be in I suppose, but never heard this phasing.