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Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

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Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#521

Post by bregma »

trhway wrote: post #132
WalterBright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had power outages for a week more than once, and can vouch for it staying warm enough for a comfortable shower for a couple days. For HVAC, you can heat/cool it at a minimum to the edge of the comfort range, which will make a big difference. You can take it much further by heating/cooling some thermal mass, and drawing on that mass when the electricity is cheaper. That mass can simply be a pile of stones in a bo…

>a pile of stones in a box with some ductwork added man, the beauty in our lives disappears. Imagine that heated by electricity (especially if during cheap period) instead of coal/wood, and how great it is to sleep on or right next to such a stove (my grandmother house had one :): https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/12/tile-stoves.html

I don't know about you, but I live in a log cabin in the back woods of Canada and have only wood stoves lined with bricks to keep me warm in winter (and we have a real Winter here). The cook stove has a cistern (water tank) for greater thermal mass and the stoves have baffles for high efficiency. The fuel grows all around me do it's carbon neutral (except for the chainsaw gas, but that's a luxury I will not forego).

This is not a used-to-was thing. It's the norm outside of towns in my county.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#522

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

wazoox wrote: post #488
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…

Wood didn't give way to coal that gave way to oil. This is a terrible fallacy (albeit very commmon, even Vaclav Smil fell into it in his "Oil" book). The world currently consumes more coal than it ever did. Wood consumption is also record high. We simply stacked up energy sources. Check this page: https://ourworldindata.org/energy So far, fossil fuels still represent about 85% of our energy consumption, and about 99%…

> We had a world 100% on renewable, back in the 18th century

There's nothing renewable about using wood if you're not replanting the forest.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#523

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

km3r wrote: post #51

The graph shows solar becoming on par/ slightly cheaper then oil/gas/coal solutions over the past decade. If this trend continues we may see an energy revolution take place in the next 10-20 years. Data center costs will dive down, more places will become livable with always on AC/heating. Even inefficient energy storage becomes viable with low enough prices (if solar is 70% cheaper than gas, then it can still compet…

>more places will become livable with always on AC/heating

It's time to realize that climate change is not the only environmental catastrophe we're facing now.

If the switch to renewable energy leads us to speed up the ecological collapse (due to land artificialization, natural habitat loss/fragmentation...), we're £%cked.

https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/inline/files/ipbes_glo...

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#524

Post by machiaweliczny »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #434
jhallenworld wrote: post #191

You know what's amazing? Farmers in rural Pakistan choosing to prefer solar to irrigate their crops (panels + VFD/inverter + 10 HP 3-phase motor): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfNgF0WTeCM Or grinding wheat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G2evJOiU9I The comments in these video are all about how much does it cost, what is your contact number, etc. Clearly this is a sea-change. Also amazing that they all have cell…

I'll admit to not knowing anything about Pakistan, let alone rural Pakistan, but do they have a national power grid there? At least with solar, you own and control the power production yourself, and (in theory) there's no hidden costs. Meanwhile, I live in a country where on the one side they're pushing for and subsidizing solar energy, but at the same side they're forcing people to change their meters so that the en…

In Poland you can redeem 80% of what you contribute to grid, so if you have excess in summer you can use it in winter. I think it's quite good and demand is there from houseowners.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#525

Post by ozborn »

Gwypaas wrote: post #481
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one transport that doesn't care about weight, it's ships. The real problem is cost.

There's two sides to it. For peak loads and shorter routes measured in minutes or hours with easy charging possibilities batteries have been coming for 5-7 years now. The issue is charging since no regen is possible except load smoothing due to operating current engines at a higher thermal efficiency. It's an industry that only looks at cost and barely makes money, efficiency and low-cost workers has been the name of…

For short haul (think ferries) the same calculations will make electric ships feasible when distance travelled is 1 or 2 order of magnitude less. Such ships already exist.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50233206

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#526

Post by qPM9l3XJrF »

What appears to be missing from this discussion is that renewables are not enough:

>Our hardest climate problems – the ones that are both large and lack obvious solutions – are agriculture (and deforestation – its major side effect) and industry. Together these are 45% of global carbon emissions. And solutions are scarce.

>Agriculture and land use account for 24% of all human emissions. That’s nearly as much as electricity, and twice as much all the world’s passenger cars combined.

>Industry – steel, cement, and manufacturing – account for 21% of human emissions – one and a half times as much as all the world’s cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes combined.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/15/how-to-decarbonize-america...

We need to start putting just as much research effort into these areas as went into renewables.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#527

Post by brazzy »

yipbub wrote: post #472
brazzy wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it also sometimes results in lynch mobs: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44856910

That article is about WhatsApp being used to coordinate a lynch mob in India (a villager suspected them of being kidnappers). Tragic, but not relevant

It is absolutely relevant to the claim that "cellular internet, and cheap smartphones is bringing a whole new class of people online and enriching their lives both materially and culturally".

Given that it's not at all a singular incident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings) it seems pretty clear that this "enriching" is a decidedly mixed blessing.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#528

Post by ben_w »

fakedang wrote: post #384
sabalaba wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not impossible (more like highly likely) for that trust to go the same way of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust. Administrative burden and corruption. Mismanagement. Exponential growth can’t go on forever. It’s interesting that UAE is doing the same thing that Nauru did except on a larger scale with petrochemicals instead of phosphate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_Phosphate_Royalties_Trus...

I've worked with the UAE's SWF, and imo, they'll never collapse. Corruption is nonexistent nearly in the investment authorities, since they are highly regulated and treated essentially as defacto Western companies listed in the NYSE or something. If they collapse, we would have far bigger problems by that time, since they're invested heavily into the modern global economy. This is not oil wealth, but actual invested…

> imo, they'll never collapse

Things can change surprisingly fast. My grandmother was born close to the peak of the British Empire, within a few years (plus or minus) of Irish independence; by the time my older brother was born the Empire was reduced to about 5 million people outside the UK, and by the time I was born the UK had humiliated itself by managing to lose a naval dispute with Iceland despite the entire population of Iceland country being approximately the same as the number of personnel in the UK armed forces.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#529

Post by wazoox »

3pt14159 wrote: post #498
wazoox wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood didn't give way to coal that gave way to oil. This is a terrible fallacy (albeit very commmon, even Vaclav Smil fell into it in his "Oil" book). The world currently consumes more coal than it ever did. Wood consumption is also record high. We simply stacked up energy sources. Check this page: https://ourworldindata.org/energy So far, fossil fuels still represent about 85% of our energy consumption, and about 99%…

I agree on renewables and they are certainly part of the solution, but we can meet our energy without fossil fuels if we really leaned into nuclear the way the French did. It's simply a matter of political will. Musk looked at the regulatory tape around nuclear and said "I guess it has to be solar then" and I think that was a mistake. If we'd applied his economics of scale, and first principles thinking to nuclear we…

We can relatively easily solve the problem of electricity production using nuclear, renewables and therefore make carbon-free electricity. But electricity is only 30% of our energy consumption.

Re: Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?

#530

Post by kieranmaine »

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #526

What appears to be missing from this discussion is that renewables are not enough: >Our hardest climate problems – the ones that are both large and lack obvious solutions – are agriculture (and deforestation – its major side effect) and industry. Together these are 45% of global carbon emissions. And solutions are scarce. >Agriculture and land use account for 24% of all human emissions. That’s nearly as much as elect…

This podcast (https://www.npr.org/transcripts/923966126) has some interesting info on lowering the CO2 emissions of concrete.
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