Topic: Renewable energy transition is expensive, but is resilient (Read 245 times)

If you follow Elon musk on Twitter he actually talked about this briefly. Basically the world needs to increase oil and gas production and needs to do it quick. He is all pro for renewable energy and basically hates oil, but even he sees trouble if a solution is not taken soon.

He also talked about the idle nuclear power plants. Saying he will fly down to one of them and eat dinner with any plants that grows in the reason. Saying people shouldn’t be scared of the radiation and it’s perfectly safe. All these leaders should be listening to him now to be honest before this gets any worse.

I thought the economically leading countries in Europe saw this problem not only in the war. It will certainly be one of the most effective solutions in the future when fossil fuel sources are exhausted, and the search for new energy sources will always be conducted.

Maybe one day, even breathing will have a fee. This energy problem is immense, but perhaps in reality, the economic effects are making themselves the most preferred products. 

I'm aware of this, renewable production is always given priority so renewable production == consumption indeed, but all of it is used somewhere. There are periods of negative electricity prices in stormy or very sunny periods, and these will likely be more frequent in the future if wind/solar production grows, but they incentive businesses to try to use (or store) this kind of excess energy.  If there is far too much production, then big producers (solar/wind parks) are turned off, which does no harm.

So this doesn't contradict the graph I linked. It affects, however, the profitability of the operators of fossil fuel plants.

I didn't refer only to pump storage hydro, thus the "" . Traditional hydro dams without pumps, which are often bigger than PSHs, are part of this "battery", because they are flexible (with some limitations, obviously, e.g. because of seasonal) and can increase and decrease production according to the missing solar/wind power.

I'm aware of this problem too, it also applies to wind parks, but I don't see it as a "blocker". In the latter case, resistance in some case disappeared when the inhabitants of the surroundings were offered participation of the profits or even to organize the parks themselves (community wind farms). This could also be done with pump storage.

Always take into account that central Europe is an extremely densely populated place of the world, and it's one of the worst places to generate renewable electricity. Even in France, Spain or Poland the potential in relation to the population/demand is much higher than in Germany or Belgium. And of course the more people live near potential production areas the more resistance is to be expected.

Even taking this into account, in Germany in only 20 years, renewables generation skyrocketed from 5% to 40% of electricity consumption, and regarding production it was even >50% in 2020 (excesses were sold to neighbouring countries, so the difference between "consumption" and "production" percentage isn't really high).

See also this list (the "champion" among bigger countries may be Brazil: ~80% of electricity coming from renewables, above all hydro). China, which is or will be eventually the world's biggest energy consumer, is also investing lots of money in renewables.

Electricity can't be "thrown away" that easily. Somebody is using it always. Bitcoin miners are an example how excess electricity can be used. If electricity prices become negative then it becomes profitable to store it in less efficient ways (e.g. hydrogen, methane, e-fuels), but that's still ok as energy consumption is almost never problematic for the environment, (fossil) energy production is.
That depends of the type of plants, you're right in that coal (and nuclear) plants aren't flexible, but gas plants are. Even coal plants can be regulated to a certain extent, so at least they haven't to run around midday.

What seems to be true in California according to what I read is that many households with solar panels do not contribute that much to fixed costs like grid maintenance, and they're often wealthier households. That's however a problem of the price model, the electricity companies could also charge higher fixed monthly fees for these costs (which is discussed according to media).

I am not very sure at this point how would Europe be able to harness enough Energy out of Solar and Wind sources to replace what it was getting through oil and gas. I think the deficit would be too high and Europe doesn't really has that much space to develop both these resources. A better bet would be Africa where there is plethora of both these resources available but then transporting these sources of electricity could be an issue. T& D losses would be way too high. Nuclear energy could be a better solution honestly at this point.

They didn't say that it can solve all problems because that is not possible. Let's say all are using renewable energy but I think there would still be problems like inflation or something. There are now devices or gadgets to predict if what the weather will be, as you see we have weather apps on our phone that works perfectly. They can also add more energy sources not just solar and wind because there are times that the weather would be totally unpredictable.

I heard the cost for renewable energy equipment like solar panel is now cheap, so the cost for batteries can be the same. It's only a one time spend and they can always recover their expenses soon.

It's funny how Von der Leyen and the European bureaucrats see wind and solar power as the solution to all problems.The main problem with green energy is the unpredictable weather,which makes green energy production unpredictable as well.The system has to be balanced by using giant batteries to store the electricity,but they are incredibly expensive,which makes the green energy extremely expensive as well.
The EU bureaucrats must stop with their "green" delusions and give a second chance to nuclear power.

Let's start with the first one and most important:


See that tiny writing there, it's the biggest and most important fact of all, the stupid directive that hopefully will be replaced completely which stands as this:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=celex%3A32009L0028

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As you say it I can see the only thing that can fix this, is a Bagger 288. Or since it's produced by the same manufacturer at least a Dora would travel around Germany and target practice on all those solar panels.


No need to put that in "", it's a PSH  or pumped storage hydro we've constructed since the sixties.
And no, it's not going to happen because engineers don't shout as loud as econazis, I've already said it before:



If this is a crime against nature for them, good luck trying to build dams with enough volume that would mean around 4-5 times the surface of Müritz and medium depth. 


Nope, the culprit is pretty obvious.
Everyone puts solar panels for free, generates extra energy during the day for credits while there is more energy than needed so it gets thrown away, and at night when there is no more solar everyone gets free energy from fossil plants that are the only ones running.
And since fossil fuel plants have to also run during the day but at a loss, guess what happens?

As one of my friends said, imagine if prostitutes would be allowed to sell their used condoms as new before pharmacies at a mandatory quota, and they would get double the price with subsidies from the state.

Did you read the graphic I linked to from Statista? There the production cost (wholesale price) is detailed, which was for a long time around 5 ct, but in late 2021 due to the gas price increase skyrocketed to 15 ct. This explains 70% of the price, the remaining 20-30% are fees for the electricity network operators.

Germany in particular has indeed the "problem" that they were pioneers of feed-in tariffs for renewables, so they incentived the construction of solar/wind generators with very high subsidies in the early 2000s. With the renewables tax consumers still pay today for this outdated machinery, gradually these subsidies are phased out for the oldest ones, so the weight of renewables in electricity prices becomes lower and lower every year.

This graph shows the proportion of renewables from electricity consumption in Germany. In 2020, a maximum of 45,3 % was reached. 2020 was of course a special year due to the pandemic, but in 2019 the proportion was also over 40%.

That's true but why do we have engineers? To solve that problem!

Solar energy and wind are already a bit complementary in many regions with temperate climate (including most of Europe) because winters tend to be more windy. And then, of course, you have hydroelectric energy which can help in phases where neither solar nor wind energy production is high. In Central Europe, Scandinavia and Austria are acting this way as a "hydro battery". Biomass is also a possibility, which is still underdeveloped, it could be burned more in low-wind/solar timeframes.

There are additionally new developments, like Power-to-gas, hydrogen, high temperature energy storage, etc. which are still not 100% mature and competitive but get better every year. So far, I'm quite optimistic.

About Californian energy prices ... there may be a lot of reasons why it's higher than in other parts of the US but I doubt solar energy is the culprit. The 2 ct/kWh is of course the generation price for new installations. California may also still be paying for old solar equipment like Germany.

Don't agree, even solar energy alone could meet "world wide energy demands"; infrastructure is a bit more challenging (see discussion with stompix) but for most countries in tropical/subtropical/warm temperate areas should not be problematic. Your opinion is very likely based on outdated data (or ideology, I hope not so ).

Renewables don't even come close to meeting world wide energy demands, nor is the infrastructure there for green energy to be up for discussion. U.S. is on par with Europe, they also tend to believe their energy problems can just be solved by installing a few solar panels and calling it a day. Unless the green energy advocates plan installing nuclear reactors, there isn't any way out of the current energy crisis other than increasing oil production to make up for the loss of oil/natural gas from Russia (the Iranians are very excited about this, by the way).

It is true that the developed environmentally friendly energy also has limitations with the wind season and solar conditions that do not routinely occur in Europe, making a difficult choice for the country.  This condition causes them to switch to nuclear and coal power plants.  Besides being cheap and easy to get.  The current issue is that the impact of the destroyed power plant due to war or anything else has a very fatal effect.  But it makes much more sense to avoid the cause than to incur far greater costs with immature considerations.  It's a different story if you are in an equatorial country where the sun and wind conditions are maintained in certain areas.  But now we are discussing the European region and its surroundings which have their own uniqueness.

The best way to generate energy are solar and wind but we should also include hydroelectric power plant which is a renewable source of energy, if well and properly constructed, it will not leak any green house gas to the environment. But the amount of energy generated from nuclear elements are more.

What I am thinking about is not about the use of nuclear to produce energy, nuclear produce more energy efficiently and there is nothing bad to use that for energy than to use it to be making nuclear weapons, the problem is nuclear weapon, not the energy.

Russia is the problem, Putin do not mind to use power and destruction to achieve the continuation of autocratic power which he fears the West and EU which prefer democracy may go against one day. The world should be of peace oyf not because of this dictatorial governments like Russia and also China that is ever preparing to take over Taiwan.

I checked the GDP of Russia and I noticed they are after destruction because they produced nuclear weapons just to be able to compete with US and other NATO countries. They are now the problem including China which is looking to merge Taiwan into itself. I do not know why blessed countries will be acting awful if not because they are dictatorial.

Even if uranium and plutonium are not used for energy production to generate electricity, that does not stop Russia to make more nuclear weapons which is the problem, the best for the world is to find a way to make sure Russia is not able to fund its nuclear project like before.

I've read a very interesting piece once (can't find it now though). The author addressed some important problems with solar that people forget, or just don't want to mention because they don't fit their narrative. The most important one is that the time when you get the most sun is the time when you need the least power. The peak of panel's production is usually at noon, but what do people do at noon? At work and their homes aren't running anything but a fridge. Then they come back at 4, 5, 6 in the afternoon and start everything up. Do the laundry, wash dishes, take a shower, watch TV... You need batteries to handle that and batteries make the whole green energy much less green and less affordable. Batteries are actually more expensive than panels and they give up much earlier than panels.
The other point is that solar panels used in varying temperatures can develop cracks over time and let moisture in. It usually takes over 10 years, but after that time they will start failing one by one. It has begun to happen in Germany where people actually have commercial solar setups older than 10 years.
Solar power is good as a backup but not as your only source of power, unless you live in a camper, or a boat.

So wait, taxes are making fossil-generated fuel more expensive, did I say something else?

How about we count those apples better? 
Cause if 50% of 30 Eurocents is taxes it means the price is still 15 Eurocents which is about 70% higher than a normal consumer can get on a quote right now online for most of Texas. And btw that average price was before the whole mess, cause you know pretty well (I assume  ) right now a tariff of 45 cents/kwh for a new contact is a catch! 


Energy production!
That's the problem, because the wind is not reliable and it blows when it wants and you might have wind during the night and morning and not when you need electricity at full peak and at that point it can stop, so...you have production but it's useless!
When you have 49 GW of solar panels producing 47 Twh, somebody is burning money, and not in an eco-friendly way.
I don't think you're going to argue with me on this one because if that were the case for 50% of the energy to come from local sources I doubt we would have an energy crisis, the problem is that we have capacity on paper, we have production but we don't have it when we need it.


Never gets old:

Compare apples to apples, please The 30 cents in Germany is the retail price (50% of it are due to taxes, with the "renewables tax", which mostly finances old infrastructure, being only 10-15%), while the 2 cents in China and Montana are wholesale/big consumer prices (which in Germany is normally about 5 ct, but in recent months got to 15-20 cents due to the gas/energy prices crisis). (The retail price in China is 9 ct, which is of course lower than in Germany.)

You're of course right that countries in central and northern Europe aren't the best ones for solar energy, but even then it can represent a high proportion of the consumption during daylight hours, and for wind energy the Northern Sea/Baltic Sea coasts are pretty good. Even being a very densely populated country and having not much hydro capacity, Germany already covers 40-50% of electricity consumption with renewables. On the other hand, in Mexico/southern US you can reach solar energy prices of 2 ct/kWh too.

And on the other hand don't include subsidies for solar and tax on coal-produced power.
China can produce electricity from coal at 2cents, Marathon is mining with energy from coal powerplant at 2.5 cents in Montana, Germany..is paying 30 euro cents per kWh with solar and wind and imports.

Everyone, before saying Europe should go solar or wind, look at this:



Or open:
https://globalsolaratlas.info/map?c=57.657158,-40.078125,3

And see that on average Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Benelux get as much sun as Alaska. 
There are areas of Montana where you get more sun than in southern Spain.

Two choices:
Conquer Russia and get access to some really large rivers for hydrocapacity
Built nuclear power plants.

I think that fossil fuels are still cheaper, yet it is true solar is catching up. My take is that is not yet there for large scale generation. For consumer use, it may be worth.

On regards to market and investment, right now green and sustainable are super-cool so I would not take this as an indication of real profitability.

The reason many wind and solar installations are being implemented, involves them being the most affordable and easiest solutions available. The market is often the best indicator of value.

A high percentage of bitcoin mining operations are powered by renewable energy due to its low price. In cases where bitcoin mining is powered by coal, it is typically state subsidized and a recipient of government welfare.



The above represents the norm.

There are many misleading charts on the internet which compare solar versus the cost of coal fuel. They do not include the total cost of coal operations.

Are you aware that the main export of Norway is crude oil an derivates? Norway sovereign fund moves billions... where do you think that came from? Selling codfish? Norway is very keen on green only at home my friend.


I would need some source for this.

Wind energy received bad publicity when wind turbines in texas froze in 2021. But their issue was not spending the extra capital to install cold weather packages on turbines to allow them to produce energy in a colder than normal winter. Cold regions like alaska are known to rely heavily upon wind power during their coldest winters. The technology is viable for cold northern regions if they have the year round wind to drive them.

Ukraine and russia have remained in a standoff since 2014 with cessation of hostilities in crimea. Overt moves to whittle away russia's oil or nuclear fuel markets could have brought the relatively peaceful standoff to its end.

The cost of renewable energy per watt is generally lower than fossil fuel based energies like oil or coal. State based subsidies are the main market drivers for energy generation with a larger carbon footprint.

Solar panels are primarily constructed from refined silicon which can be made from processed sand. Silicon is abundant, non toxic and can be found everywhere.

The main grievance against renewable energy comes from rare earth minerals which are primarily used in electric motors, generators and lithium batteries. It is possible this complaint will become less critical over time with tesla's next generation of battery technology, which was designed and engineered to use less rare earth mins than their previous tech.

Renewables is definitely the way of the future, however it suffers from a couple problems - some of the mining processes used for the rare metals can be extremely bad for the environment, plus they're limited and some can only be found in certain countries which might not align with our political views. There is also the need for large scale battery farms to store power and the technology is improving but not super effective so far. The dangers of nuclear power is often overstated - barring disasters like the Japan tsunami, it is an incredibly safe form of energy that is way less polluting than coal fire stations.

What's more to realize when the worst yet to come? We are not sure yet that your realization will come to an idea of building facilities which harness green energy. It is still not the end, the war isn't over and if somehow we manage to escape this turmoil, then it is a good thing to put those ideas in action and build one.
Nuclear plants are way too dangerous and if those plants gets destroyed, nobody wins. Good thing in our country we can avail those alternatives, we have marshlands which has natural gas, we have a tropical season and can harness solar and wind energy, waterfalls etc. If the government don't act upon these opportunities, we as a citizen should look it by ourselves and do it on our own. Little by little some of my neighbors are trying to build theirs, and I am encouraged by them and so I am planning to build my own set(solar energy)  with the help of professional of course.

Countries realise only when there arises difficulty. Now European countries that depend completely on oil and gas from Russia need to look for an alternate or other countries for their imports.

If the green energy infrastructure is developed earlier, now things could've been even better. Already more countries are into transition towards green energy. Renewable energy transition needs a big capital for the initial setup, which makes it expensive.

At last! Not sure how European governments are realizing the importance of green energy only now! The European people are usually known as environmentally educated people to the rest of the world. Just look at Norway how much they have done to contribute to the green energy.

But anyway, realizing is great even if it is late! So I sincerely hope that European governments will start working towards 100% green energy production and try to become self reliant.

Upon Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the limited ability to stop the imports of gas and oil from Russia to avoid financing the military aggression. Ursula Von der Leyen today mentioned in the European Parliament that this shows how the strategy to transition to solar and wind is strategic in more than one way and is not only about climate change.

Solar and wind power and by nature quite distributed and avoid the existence of critical and dangerous energy infrastructure (e.g. nuclear centrals)