Hacker News Reader

Water, wind and sun won't displace nuclear and carbon-based energy for a number of reasons, cost being foremost. The best that "renewable" energy can do is temper demand for carbon-based energy.

The only reasonable replacement for the power infrastructure we have today is fusion power, but that's between 10 and 50 years away from commercial viability depending on who you listen to.

View on HN

Is this cost like "organic" cost? (In that organic things get cheaper the more that gets produced).

Is there hope of renewable energy sources getting cheaper if they get more ubiquitous? In Portland we have a major wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas (http://www.vestas.com. They are from Europe, but have a big location here).

I guess my question is, the blades + farms get cheaper in large quantities, like anything else. So it seems the cost part could get better. But if they simply can't make enough power, that seems harder to conquer. Are you saying these things can't make enough power? (I suspect everybody knows this except for me.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com