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Comment by muhaaa | Hacker News Reader

Renewable energy is a lot less energy dense than oil or nuclear. Just to maintain renewable energy projects we need to re-invest about 25% of its energy output to keep it going long-term. This 25% needs to come from your living standards. Compare that to oil of about 10% and nuclear of less than 5%. Going green means that we loose productivity and have less money available on non-essential products and services. And many "greens" think they can keep their iPhone - I dont think so -, far away vacation - nope -, having a car - maybe a tiny one which you share with the whole family (incl. uncles and aunts).

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What we care about is overall cost, not how much is required to reinvest.

If a renewable energy source is for example twice cheaper overall including the need to reinvest 25% then it is twice cheaper overall.

Interesting that you speak from some group of "we". Seems presumptuous at best.

The major driver of renewables costs is investment. The wind blowing and sun shining does not cost anything.

Sadly regarding renewables, there is no twice cheaper available right now. Maybe through innovation somewhere in the future. Right now only hydro power is close to fossil fuel energy density. But it is only available in a few places around the world.

Solar is on par with fosil fuels. And at least in EU with cap & trade system accounting for externalities as well as stopping sponsoring Russian wars and terrorism, I would not be surprised if renewables were twice as cheap.

The cost of fuel is rapidly increasing in lots of countries, which is affecting living standards. And global warming is affect living standards.

It's about everyone's best option for energy production and consumption. Rather than the "greens" and their iPhones — let's have the discussion and make informed choices, rather than accepting the status quo as the choice.

Lets see what the "informed choice" is? Freezing to death in winter or burn higher energy dense fuels. But you have a choice :-D

Great illustration of my point... Let's get informed on the choices. Where I live the choices are not binary like you've implied.

Energy density is an irrelevant metric. I don't care about the energy density of the source producing the power coming out of my sockets; I care about what it costs me.

Energy density is at best a contributor to cost, but if we have the actual cost there's no reason to use this dubious substitute. No reason, that is, unless you know the actual cost figures do not support your argument and are trying to dissemble.

The beauty of energy density is that you pay energy to get energy. You pay 1 kWh to get out 4 kWh in renewables. Thus you have 3 kWh available for society. Oil provides 9 kWh for society per 1 kWh investment. Nuclear provides 19 kWh for society. In developed economies we are about 12 kWh for society per 1 kWh investment. Thus going to renewables will cut society wealth by a factor of 4! The energy is not gone but it is redirected to maintain renewables infrastructure. If you live in the US rn, your renewables living standard will be equivalent to Mexico rn.

Money is quasi-energy. The petrodollar is not a joke. It literally binds the US dollar to barrels of oil. As everybody needs energy / oil, everybody needs US dollars.

> Money is quasi-energy

Except it isn't. Energy is only one of the resources that goes into making things. Other costs, like materials, labor and cost of capital, are also important. Nuclear has the problem that these other costs are significantly higher than for renewables.

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