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Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

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Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#431

Post by 0xffff2 »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #288
berkes wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting side effect is that this reliance on cables introduces a dependency on copper which already is in short supply and which can be mined only in specific regions. So it re-introduces some geo-political dependencies. Not in the way fossil fuels or unranium do, because a copper cable won't "burn up" to produce the energy, but they do need some upkeep. Another dependency this introduces is the network itself. A…

Cables can be made out of aluminium, so that's not really an issue

Not just "can be". For transmission lines (which is what we're talking about here) aluminum is used exclusively.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#432

Post by gmueckl »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #417
HPsquared wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any country relying on international cables for electricity would need to build and maintain full local backup power capacity. The combined cost of cables + backup may be more than storage cost. (Of course there are many factors which affect all these costs)

It helps to have stable bi-lateral relationships between countries that choose to connect their grids and economies. This kind of stability is a good thing. The current instability with long relationships being questioned and falling apart is a bad thing. And where you say cost, I say investment. Because energy is a valuable commodity and being able to buy/sell energy via cables has value. Most renewable energy inves…

Recent history is a very, very good reminder that political relationships between countries (or more generally political powers) are extremely fragile and the only reliable constant in these kinds of systems is change and stability isn't permanent, unfortunately.

Even the EU with it's very tight integration between member states is seeing a lot of pressure to tear itself apart again from the inside, despite the very real costs thĺis would bring.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#433

Post by ZeroGravitas »

HappMacDonald wrote: post #250
jillesvangurp wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North south connections enable solar power from Africa to be used around the year. And while solar is down in the winter, wind production usually peaks. If you have thousands of km of cable, there is a lot of power that can be moved around.

buckle may be referring at least partly to the north-south landmass imbalance. inb4 someone tries to invent floating solar farms to try to fill the Pacific with, lol.

China already has more than 1GW of floating solar PV in the Pacific.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#434

Post by wanderingstan »

zenkat wrote: post #425
wanderingstan wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The Innovator's Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen described how big companies fail when against new startups because they can’t let go of their fat margins for a new technology that (at first) appears to be inferior, even a toy. (His examples are Japanese motorbikes and hard disks) Seems the United States is now trapped in the same dilemma. It can’t let go of those fat oil profits to embrace the new —but rapidly im…

Check out Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" for an interesting take on this dynamic for nation-states and political economies. His core thesis is that dominant powers rise as new players leverage new technologies (especially energy technologies), build complex interdependent economies centered around those technologies, but then wither and fall as they spend increasingly more on military power to…

Thanks for the tip! It seems obvious now, but its been interesting for me to realize how much of human history can be understood as a quest for energy, full stop. Even going back to the invention of farming, which at its core was way to reliably source more calories per person. Fun to think of your examples of sailing, coal, and petroleum empires as further chapters in this ongoing quest.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#435

Post by marcosdumay »

kukkukb wrote: post #231
buckle8017 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China builds solar panels using electricity produced by burning coal. China is by far the world largest producer of green house gases.

Surely, at some point in the near future, they'll be producing solar panels using solar energy?

Well, in some 2 years their solar production trend will reach their electricity consumption trend...

So either that or they'll deploy electric-arc sculptures all over the country for the population to see, listen, and smell.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#436

Post by ZeroGravitas »

conradev wrote: post #424
Lightkey wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a bit behind on China. This was just published a week ago, showing renewable energy build-out has finally surpassed increased demand for this year, meaning peak coal was probably last year: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-brics-emergin... (at end of the article).

That’s great news! Does that include the coal plants they’re funding in Indonesia and other places?

The Chinese funded coal plants in Pakistan are being priced out by Chinese solar panels imported by end users.

Will be an interesting one to watch as to how China responds.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#437

Post by olddustytrail »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #214
georgemcbay wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also would have been nice to have a critical look at how the Chinese were able to corner the Solar market via state sponsored means. What if... (stick with me here because this is about to get crazy)... free market capitalism isn't the best solution for everything...?

The correct solution is to make China pay tariffs in proportion to their explicit and implicit state support for their "private" industries. It is not too late to push back.

You can't make China pay tariffs because it's not the exporter that pays them, it's the importer.

Tariffs in the USA are basically a tax on Americans. The aim being to make imported goods more expensive for Americans so they're more likely to buy local goods which would otherwise be more expensive than the imported version.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#438

Post by Retric »

trillic wrote: post #343
harperlee wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diesel, iron or aluminum, from your parent post, are difficult to explode… (personally, no clue about magnesium); and the point of the latter two is that you can “store” energy by upstreaming its consumption when power is available, you don’t necessarily need to produce an actual reversible energy store.

magnesium is the most explody of all those

But still not explosive at scale. It’s a surface area issue, a small strip of magnesium explodes when dropped in water but a 100t cargo of magnesium sinking in a harbor would be a huge fire.

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#439

Post by antonvs »

myrmidon wrote: post #304
usrusr wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what's the probability of those direct climate effects happening without an all out nuclear war on the side, as a second order effect of the climate change? Humans are prone to fall for whatever radical ideology crosses their path when the future looks bleak.

I don't believe in world-war as byproduct of climate change yet. I think capability to wage war internationally will probably decrease thanks to climate change; it is much easier for a state to prevent the peasants from starving than to feed/equip/fuel an army. I also don't really see the incentives working: Countries like Bangladesh that are gonna suffer disproportionally are mostly not in a position to wage war off…

I mostly agree with your assessment, except that "moaning about refugees" and resulting action is going to get a whole lot worse as the numbers increase.

We're already seeing how countries like the UK and US can be manipulated to respond to these situations, even when their effects are mostly imaginary and even net positive. Imagine what will start happening if the bogeyman of migration becomes a real problem.

"Use wealth as a buffer" works in the current scenario to some extent - although the US seems to have a lot of trouble with it. But what will scaling that look like? Trumpian concentration camps throughout the country, ICE budget approaching that of the US military, national curfews, martial law, suspension of habeas corpus...? We've already seen hints of all these things.

Things could get very bad. But I agree, not extinction-level, yet. Give us time though!

Re: Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

#440

Post by marcosdumay »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #134
arh5451 wrote: post #24

Nice article explaining solar energy policy. I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms. Also would have been nice to have a critical look at how the Chinese were able to corner the Solar market via state sponsored means.

Storage is the elephant in the solar-powered room

Storage is something that close to nobody demands today, so up to 3 years ago anybody trying to sell it automatically failed.

Still close to nobody demands it today, and a few people are already successfully selling it. So I don't see where you found a problem here.

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