Bill Gates: ‘We Need an Energy Miracle’
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
They have this statement that the cost of solar photovoltaic is the same as hydrocarbon’s. And that’s one of those misleadingly meaningless statements.
What they mean is that at noon in Arizona, the cost of that kilowatt-hour is the same as a hydrocarbon kilowatt-hour. But it doesn’t come at night, it doesn’t come after the sun hasn’t shone, so the fact that in that one moment you reach parity, so what?
The reading public, when they see things like that, they underestimate how hard this thing is. So false solutions like divestment or “Oh, it’s easy to do” hurt our ability to fix the problems. Distinguishing a real solution from a false solution is actually very complicated.
I really wish there was more nuance in the discussion about energy at this level. Folks rarely consider the entire system when evaluating energy sources, costs, consumption-side infrastructure, etc. The only way to move forward is to consider all these problems at once.
Unfortunately, this is hard, and difficult to put in a headline. Witness: this great interview is called "We Need an Energy Miracle".
Might I propose another: "Energy Infrastructure is Hard."
"Oh, they're using Panasonic batteries."
"He drives a Tesla."
"Google it."
I still think emc2fusion.org is worth a second look. Unfortunately, a number of really useful writeups were on talk-polywell.org which dreamhost hosed.
Solar power filling in the daytime energy peaks in places like Arizona is the low hanging fruit, something we can achieve with today's technology and even today's politics (mostly). It marks the point where, even without externalities priced correctly and fossil fuel subsidies not yet removed, where clean energy can get a foothold in the market and be installed even by people who do not care about climate change, just saving money. And it therefore supercharges the positive feedback loop where more solar deployed makes the next panel cheaper.
Gates describes a world where people are complacent about this being an easy problem to solve, I see a world where powerful vested interests push the line of "fuck it, its too late to do anything anyway, and solar is a communist scam that doesn't work anyway".
He makes the same mistake about EV cars, undermining people's enthusiasm because in many US states the power comes from coal. I assume anyone that brings that up and doesn't immediately say "of course the solution is to shut the coal stations, even just shifting to natural gas, never mind a mix of solar/wind/hydro/nuclear/gas, is a big improvement" is part of the problem, not the solution. I'll have to hope Gates was poorly quoted here as its such a poi tless gotcha.
He also mangles the negative pricing thing, which he should be celebrating as a valid price signal to encourage more flexible fossil fuel plants, storage and demand management.
All in all, I'm pretty disappointed, it feels like he's been reading some biased sources and not seen through their spin. Which, considering he clearly understands there's a problem here that needs solved, is a great shame.
1) I think Gates' point was that what works for Arizona midday doesn't necessarily work for Pennsylvania or Washington. While the math might pencil out in the ideal case, he's concerned that the focus will leave R&D in more efficient solar before we get a universally cost-efficient solution for photovoltaic. I think he'd agree with you that the goal is to have people motivated to go solar for selfish reasons (to save money). I think he'd disagree with you that you can price based on removing existing subsidies and market bias towards fossil fuels, since those subsidies are in place and the externalities aren't yet priced.
3) Problem is, we can't just shut down the coal stations without eating an enormous cost in terms of lost power production. For most energy planners, the goal is to let existing (massively expensive) infrastructure age-out and transition to renewable/carbon-neutral infrastructure on the new installation side. Otherwise the costs are untenable.
4) While negative pricing should incentivize investments in storage, I think Gates is looking at the imbalance in the incentives that led Germany to that point. A negative price indicates that there was over investment in infrastructure, and they're still stuck with the coal plants for base load. Similar to my comment on #3, you can't just shut off existing coal/oil/natural gas without hitting someone with the bill. Making that the taxpayer's problem is not going to go over well, and the companies are going to lose tons of money if their investments in those plants can't pay off over their 30-60 year projected lifespan.
Those incentives need to be realigned, and almost certainly will at some point, though probably much later than someone who believes in the power of market forces would like. The initial work will mostly be done via central planning and government regulation.
It's even possible, like the VW scandal has reverberations in consumer confidence in their brand, that global warming has the potential to discredit capitalism in the eyes of the public, if a carbon tax doesn't get introduced soon enough to see capitalism as part of the solution and not just the problem.
However, the creative capitalist would argue that rather than penalizing fossil fuel companies (via Carbon tax), governments would do better to reward innovators via more 'green tax credits' and like financial incentives. You get the same* overall impact, just with less political push-back and more R&D, driven BY capitalism.
And by the way, Gates invented "Creative Capitalism" (https://www.fpsct.org/uploaded/faculty/johnsonc/U_S_History/...).