Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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Germany and other nations that poured subsidies into renewables early on (and are to be commended for their economic sacrifice for doing so) are outliers. The rest of the world caught up as soon as renewables were cheaper than fossil fuels. Capital markets don't have feelings.

Humanity lucked out that solar and wind costs were driven down as rapidly as they were through manufacturing scale. We'd be screwed otherwise ("ie business as usual carbon output estimates").

Somewhat related but unrelated: it's not bad if fracking goes south. It'll drive the price of natural gas up, which will make existing nuclear and existing/new renewables more cost competitive. It'll also drive adoption of energy storage faster. We want natural gas prices to rise, since we're not going to internalize the CO2 emission cost through regulation. This allows for market forces to kick in that are beneficial to climate change mitigation.

Disclaimer: I have brokered one tax equity partnership arrangement for a solar plant rated @ >1MW (Indianapolis suburbs), and have done my research.

We didn't luck out, global CO2 output is still increasing, we have never output so much as in 2018.

All the green energy we've added so far is only in addition to burning fossil fuels, it hasn't replaced any yet.

Many individual nations have simultaneously reduced total fossil fuel generation while increasing renewable use. At least in some places in the world, replacing is probably the right word.

We would've never gotten into this mess if people would recognize the concept of negative spillover / externalities and that the world is worse off for them not being taxed appropriately.

Maybe you can come down to New Orleans and explain this to our bought and paid for City Council that can't seem to understand the sentence "Peakers will be stranded assets by 2025"

> Humanity lucked out

Humanity didn't luck out. The Chinese communists invested heavily in solar while the US was wasting money on fracking.

That’s just a clueless statement. How are people going to heat their homes?

Solar is amazing, but isn’t the be all end all.

Heat pumps and weatherizing. Likely some homes in very cold climates will still need natural gas service (propane tanks, more likely) for emergency heat when the polar vortex hits, but a tight envelope and an efficient heat pump do most of the heavy lifting.

You live in the Bay Area, don't you?

No, heat pumps (which take energy; duh) and "weatherizing" are not going to heat houses in Canada or Maine.

One of my properties is in northern Illinois, no problems running off a heat pump almost year round. Natural gas bill is about $150/year for monthly service connections and rare use.

I’ve never lived in California.

Your comment omits an important but interesting detail here - how common is "rare use" and what is it being used for?

Air source heat pumps become less effective as the temperature drops. At 17F, you lose about 25% of BTU capacity as compared to 48F.

Hot water is another huge use — it’s really expensive to use electricity for that purpose.

Heat pump water heaters exist.

"Heat pump water heaters use electricity to move heat from one place to another instead of generating heat directly. Therefore, they can be two to three times more energy efficient than conventional electric resistance water heaters. To move the heat, heat pumps work like a refrigerator in reverse."

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/water-heating/heat-pump-w...

> Heat pump water heaters exist.

Yeah I just put one of those in, mostly because I didn't want to run a gas line. And feel a lot more competent running a 30amp circuit than cutting and sealing a hole in the roof.

Works fine.

Also friend in Florida says she has a heat pump with an air handler. It produces heat in the winter and cooling in the summer.

Not the end of the world.

Looking at the grafana chart of the data scrapped from my smart thermostat, less than 10 days this winter season. The use is for "emergency heat" when it's too cold for the heat pump alone to effectively heat the premises.

I'm in eastern Canada and there are many heat pumps here. Our cold here is typically a "wet cold" due to the Atlantic ocean, rather then the frigid cold of a central province like Ontario. I suspect they would work fine in Maine for the most part as well, for the same reasons.

Not everyone lives in California.

Heat pumps aren’t sufficient in the northeast without a substantial ($50k+) investment in a ground loop. Many homes require significant retrofit to even use one.

Just use an air to water heat pump. We've got one installed in the netherlands, costs was about €6k (ex subsidies) and we're disconnected from the gas supply. The newest generations can go up to -25 degrees celcius (look up Mitsubishi zubadan for example)

You shouldn't assume that your climate is the same as the one GP referenced.

The climate is harsher than -25C/-15F in the winter?

GP cited Netherlands. No way that's a typical temperature.

Air to water heat pumps are also used in harser climates. If you're interested here is an example datasheet of an air to water heat pump (2018) (using Celsius here):

PUHZ-SHW112YAA Guaranteed operating range (outdoor): Heating: -28 to +21 Domestic hot water: -28 to +35

On page 108 you can find the actual co-efficient of performance (COP) for different outside temperatures and inside water heating temperatures. As an example: at -10 and an water temperature for heating at 25 you still get a COP of 3+ (which are the average low temperatures in Maine). That means that 100% electricity moves 300% of heat into your house.

> How are people going to heat their homes?

Considering global warming, not natural gas or fuel oil.

In Sweden homes are heated with heatpumps and district heating. [1] The electricity is producerar with hydro, nuclear, wind and some biofuel (remains from the wood industry). The fossil fuel part has nearly been relegated to history. [2] Now it is mainly transport and the mining industry left to fix.

Mind you, some of these graphs are four years old. So we are really doing a lot better.

[1] https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/sustainable-energ...

[2] https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2014/12/14/sustainable-energ...

There was a UK govt report, only a few days ago, that suggested new homes not be connected to gas after 2025, and to use heat pumps or other low carbon heating.

They also called for a plan to retrofit existing housing.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2194603-ban-gas-boilers...

Thanks for the reminder, here's the actual report:

https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/uk-housing-fit-for-the...

Your history is incorrect. The US and several other leading industrial nations invented nearly everything of consequence in the solar industry's modern history. NASA was busy innovating on solar all the way back in the 1960s. Look at the history of solar inventions from 1950 to 2010, you won't find much Chinese invention in there. China lowered the cost of manufacturing of tech invented by other nations.

You're talking about development of solar prior to 2000. I'm talking about after 2000. The big investment in solar production was at the behest of the Chinese government. They are the ones that spent the hundreds of billions needed to commercialize solar, not the US.

At the same time the US spent a $1T on fracking. And a couple of $T on pointless wars.

> US spent a $1T on fracking

Citation? I suspect this a grossly over stated figure.

Edit: formatting

WSJ article recently pointed out that the Fracking industry lost $280 Billion over the last 10 or so years.

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