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In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

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Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#681

Post by mrks_hy »

Moldoteck wrote: post #314
mrks_hy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> due to the stupid Net Zero taxes. No. Citation neede. The issue is the moronic way energy auctions are done, first by setting the price to the highest source that can satisfy (always gas) but ignoring (!) geography. Then, phase 2, dropping the impossible providers (i.e. Scottish hydro in the North for South England), and doing another (much more expensive pass). The Octopus CEO had a succinct explainer recently, ca…

this is not moronic. This is done everywhere in the world. In fact, merit order does justify more ren deployment even if economics aren't that great, because operators will be paid according to merit order, needing less cfd's. You can also check out how much of the gas electricity price is just carbon tax. And how transmission spending evolved. And how CFD's for different tech evolved in each AR round

It helps overly subsidize renewables and prevents price drops arriving directly at the consumer's bill.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#682

Post by natmaka »

Moldoteck wrote: post #590
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ontario they now want to double the electricity price to 15 cents kWh to finance refurbs and ”SMR” new builds. https://reneweconomy.com.au/ontario-utility-wants-to-double-... New built nuclear power simply does not make any sense anymore given the costs and timelines involved.

You need to read precisely what's happening. Ontario wants to front finance all refurbs and SMRs instead of spreading the financing over years like it's usually done. BWRX is expensive for sure. It'll cost more per GW than the failed french FLA3 or Vogtle. To me this seems a mistake considering Canada had Candus, an own authentic design that doesn't rely on enriched fuel and they did some very serious refurbs recentl…

> even Barakah built as new by Korea is competitive

You bet it does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#683

Post by corford »

clarionbell wrote: post #600

Meanwhile European chemical manufacturing is collapsing under weight of record energy costs.[1][2] Most of other manufacturing is somehow tied to chemicals, you can't build things without material after all. So this will feed ongoing industrial collapse, which now affects even Germany.[3] Meanwhile, low income households are running into financial issues if they want to turn up the heat.[4] The whole process has been…

Ed Conway (of Sky) did a nice piece on this recently covering the UK's chemical industry decline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ3hT8tqZgo

My takeaway was that it's not really high energy costs (though for sure that doesn't help) but, in the UK's case at least, much more caused by political and policy ignorance over decades. Industrial, polluting industries were simply not vote winners and none of the politicians understood or cared about the strategic implications of letting these industries collapse.

I suspect this is now changing.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#684

Post by pfdietz »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #622
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is how dispersed carbon atoms are in the atmosphere. Another option is ammonia, which is quite nasty to deal with.

We can start with non-dispersed carbon atoms coming off industrial processes. Green hydrogen and CO2 into methane

This is just one-time repackaging of the CO2 from fossil fuel combustion. It's not an answer.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#685

Post by ragazzina »

crote wrote: post #587
epolanski wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ain't gonna use the dishwasher when the system wants me to, but when I can or want. I pay low energy prices during night than day, that's normal, but I'm still not gonna do laundry at 9 pm, I'd rather pay the 10/20 cents more during the day.

I couldn't care less when it runs, as long as it's done when I want to unload it. The diswasher will by full after dinner, so I close it and press "start". It has to be done at the latest by next dinner. Does it run immediately, during the night, or during the day? Irrelevant, let the damn thing pick the best (cheapest) time. Same with laundry. On average I run less than one load a day, so I'm happy if it finishes ei…

Laundry and dishwashing are completely different though?

Recent dishwashers can open by themselves and dry the dishes, washing machines need a (awaken) human to remove the wet clothes when they finish their cycle.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#686

Post by otherme123 »

jmward01 wrote: post #586
FrancisMoodie wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why it always has to be one or the other? Why can't we have both? More sources of energy means more reliable energy distribution, multiple fail-safes, in summer there is more solar, in fall there is more wind, in winter we probably need power plants to uphold the need for energy so everyone can stay warm. But this polarization of things, just like with politics, is so stupid. They all have pro's an…

I am a huge fan of the diversity argument. I think though that the proven negatives of fossil fuels and the massive difference in cost compared to renewables + batteries will end up making fossil fuels a niche at best in the not so near future. The goal is diversity, not maintaining every possible system. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, nuclear and batteries give us a pretty diverse system compared to oil+coal+natura…

> they will likely collapse suddenly

In Europe it seems that instead of sudden collapse (1-2 years), they are phasing out (10-20 years). The mix in Spain was nuclear, gas, coal, hidro and fuel a couple of decades ago. Coal was phased out, plants closed by the producers. Fuel almost gone. Gas still important, but nuclear is static and thus has less % of the mix as total output is higher. A lot of new sources are now present in the grid: solar FV, thermal solar, eolic, batteries, reverse pumping and residue burning.

5 years ago (notice the brown band at 5%, coal): https://demanda.ree.es/visiona/peninsula/nacionalau/acumulad...

Today (coal is gone): https://demanda.ree.es/visiona/peninsula/nacionalau/acumulad...

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#687

Post by graemep »

WarmWash wrote: post #66
mschuster91 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Europe is a big customer for Chinese exports, and Russia is antagonizing, it seems like China would have an incentive to put pressure on Russia. China wants Russia to at least keep the Ukraine war going, if not eventually win the darn thing. Russia winning (or getting away with an armistice that lets them keep Crimea and Donbas) means a precedence China has for a land-grab of its own - obviously Taiwan, but othe…

Donbas is mostly wheat fields, Taiwan is mostly SOTA semiconductor fabs that currently are the sole pillar holding up the AI (and compute in general) zeitgeist. The global response would not be the same, even remotely. And what would China get from it? A tiny island of rubble and an ego boost, while losing enormous global favor? The cost of that island may well be a few trillion for China, just so they can say they d…

China has a far larger military advantage over Taiwan than Russia had over Ukraine. The sea is a barrier, but that cuts both ways as it means China can blockade Taiwan.

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#688

Post by triceratops »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #638
triceratops wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your intuition is flat out wrong. Building new nuclear takes too long. "Just fix the nuclear regulations" is a vibes-based statement. Even China built 100x as much solar as nuclear in 2025. Wouldn't they "lower standards" to build more nuclear if it made any economic sense? As for > those panels themselves take energy and rare earth minerals to create You've swallowed Big Oil propaganda and are choosing to parrot it…

The reason Nuclear takes so long is that people are neurotic about it and so the regulations are totally excessive. If we had a standardised reactor, it wouldn't be that difficult to churn them out.

Since you clearly didn't read past the second sentence in my post I'm going to repeat myself. Why doesn't China repeal "excessive" and "neurotic" regulations and build more nuclear instead of solar? Rather than the other way around?

Re: In Europe, wind and solar overtake fossil fuels

#689

Post by triceratops »

natmaka wrote: post #673
triceratops wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grid-scale solar installations can be much more decentralized than nuclear or natural gas power plants. Decentralizing through subsidies at the homeowner level is maybe not the best use of money.

> Decentralizing through subsidies Consider the lower production cost of renewable electricity: in the long run, it offsets the investment. Bonus: no risk of accidents, no hazardous waste, no dependence on a fuel source, no weapons proliferation...

I didn't say subsidize nuclear. I said subsidize grid-scale solar before rooftop solar.
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