Hacker News Reader

Comment by mandmandam | Hacker News Reader

> there's no reason to try and prove this wrong

Well, there is one reason: If Uruguay can do it, then it clearly demonstrates how blitheringly incompetent Western leaders are.

It shows how horrifically pointless our oil wars have been (outside of making the instigators even wealthier), and nullifies each and every bullshit argument of the fossil fuel industry completely.

Some numbers: Uruguay has $20k GDP per capita, compared to the US' $76k - basically a quarter of the wealth.

View on HN

When you have 50% of your electricity made using hydro-power, it's really easy to integrate as much renewable energy as you'd like. This is not even the best story, there are countries with close to 100% clean electricity, like Norway or Austria. It just doesn't scale that well for large countries where hydro can't amount to more than 10-20%.

South Australia has sourced 71.5% of its electricity from wind and solar over the last 12 months. It was 86.9% in October of this year. And its main transmission company is forecasting it will be 100% by 2026/27 [1]

To be absolutely clear, the percentages above are wind and solar only. They don't include hydro of which SA has only one small generator (3MW), that is situated in the main city's gravity-fed supply pipes. [2]

[1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-and-solar-meet-stunning-87-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Storage_Mini_Hydro

It's relatively easy to generate that amount, especially when you can easily import 20% of your power(very dirty coal power), and also run gas turbines for another 40%, like it is at this very moment https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/AU-SA

When you're talking about changing the US, it couldn't just import 100GW, Canada and Mexico couldn't provide that much, even if they were clean energy. There is just a difference between providing for one small region vs a continent. Also, Uruguay has huge neighbors, they could easily import-export clean energy from them (they are all hydro-centric).

But yeah, I will see the US going to 70% pretty soon, considering where panel prices are. The one big thing missing is the low cost to install on rooftops. In the US is costs at least 3 dollars per watt to install panels, whereas in the Eu or Australia it's under 1 dollar. The panels themselves can be bought for 15-20 *cents* per watt, so there is a lot of room for improvement. Rooftop solar in the US is a big scam at the moment, they are fleecing the consumers. On the other hand, utility size in the US is cheap, so they will cover the gap.

Your link shows that AU-SA only used 12% gas in october, and no coal at all.

I am talking for hours when there isn't much renewables. If you set the timeline to 24 hours and look at the hours, you have periods with 55% gas and also 20% imports. You can assume imports are dirty coal, because that is most of Australia.

I've seen others point out that it's the average that matters for emissions and that was what the other commenter was posting. That makes sense to me, the peak usage only matters for cost reasons, and apparently gas turbines are really cheap.

There's no reason to speculate, much less pronounce the transition impossible. Smart people have down the math.

Transitioning the US to 100% clean power would cost - at most - $5.7 trillion.

We spent $8 trillion fucking up the middle east for oil.

Think about that - take all the time you need. Because if you still think this is about hydro access, and not leadership, you're holding up the change that is necessary.

> Because if you still think this is about hydro access, and not leadership

I looked up the McKenzie report[1] where I think the 5.7 trillion comes from. In short, the renewable energy would be 1.5 trillion, and batteries 2.5 trillion (transmission is the rest). If you have 50% hydro, then you don't need batteries, so the cost for the US would drop by 2.5trillion. Having hydro is a big reason why some countries can do it easier than others. It's not a white and black situation, after-all, the US is already investing a lot in renewable energy.

Second, the report says it provisioned for 900 "gigawatts" of batteries. If they mean GW rather than GWh (Which I think they do), that is not nearly enough, that is just 2000 GWh at today's prices. The US needs 500GWh on average each hour, so you only get batteries for 4 hours. You need to either build much more PV, or buy many more batteries. Also, 2000GWh is about 2 years worth of current global battery manufacturing. It's just not the same building out a small country or a large country electrical grid.

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/shifting-u-s-to-100-percent-ren...

That being said, it will happen, we'll soon switch to PV production, and it will happen faster than people think. It will be a disruption previously only seen in software. By 2030 we'll probably be pretty much powered by PV panels.

I'd like to see some specifics in where you get the $5.7 trillion.

More specifically how was the problem of intermittent power solved? I'm not aware of any grid-scale solution to this problem unless you include vast amounts of hydro to provide power when there is no wind or no sun or both.

Hydro power… it’s like 50% of their power. Then wind, then biomass, then solar.

China has deployed more wind power this year than the UK's total aggregate generation capacity, and double US total aggregate solar generation. Yes, South America has a substantial amount of existing hydro power, but this is no excuse for developed world laggards. It is a choice to prioritize oil, gas, and other fossil fuel subsidies and infra support, but it is hopeless with global EV and renewables manufacturing flywheels coming up to speed (China is selling ~1 million EVs per month as of 2023Q4, solar PV manufacturing will reach 1TW next year). Just as Tesla (and BYD in China, credit where credit due) was the underdog and "David" until they rocketed passed legacy auto and became "Goliath", the same will happen to clean energy vs fossil tech. Like a recession, you're not going to be able to call it until looking back at trailing indicators.

https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update-j...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carb...

> The most striking growth has been in solar power, according to Myllyvirta. Solar installations increased by 210 gigawatts (GW) this year alone, which is twice the total solar capacity of the US and four times what China added in 2020.

> The analysis, which is based on official figures and commercial data, found that China installed 70GW of wind power this year – more than the entire power generation capacity of the UK. It is also expected to add 7GW of hydro power and 3GW of nuclear power capacity this year, said the report.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to...

> China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are set to fall in 2024 and could be facing structural decline, due to record growth in the installation of new low-carbon energy sources.

(my note: pedal to the floor, no one ever said "we have too much clean energy!")

When you have the benefit of being able to move millions of people by force to build a dam, and get to produce solar panels with slave labor, it's way easier.

Those are very bad things, no doubt whatsoever, but the data shows it is unnecessary for success. US solar and battery/storage manufacturing is exploding due to Inflation Reduction Act incentives, for example. Those bad things are not an excuse to not push scaling harder faster. Automation is a substantial component of solar and battery manufacturing, and you can build that automation with willing labor earning fair compensation.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/08/14/over-155-gw-of-u-s-so...

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...

https://www.utilitydive.com/spons/ira-sets-the-stage-for-us-...

1 in 6 American workers stay in unwanted jobs just to keep their healthcare [0]. Is that so different? Americans will tell you with a straight face that giving people free college will affect the numbers joining the military - is that so different?

Also, seems to me that the 8 trillion, with a t, dollars that were spent creating terror in the middle east would have bought a few panels. To compare directly, the highest estimate for transitioning the US to 100% renewable electricity is 5.7 trillion dollars [1].

So, if we'd just killed about 600,000 fewer civilians we could afford the change. Pointing fingers at China is easier than accepting our own actions, but you know, there's a lot to be said for taking responsibility for what one can actually change.

0 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/349094/workers-stay-unwanted-jo...

1 - https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/cost-of...

Why are there two replies to you with the same content but two user names?

You first point: that's not even close to being enslaved or forced to do whatever your government tells you to do under threat of imprisonment. Yes, it is very, very different.

You can't use multiple accounts like this, so I've banned both of these. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's pretty concerning that there are users on this platform operating like this given what it could imply.

You first point: that's not even close to being enslaved or forced to do whatever your government tells you to do under threat of imprisonment. Yes, it is very, very different.

In a country where thousands of people break the law just so they can get food and a little healthcare in prison - no, it's really not.

Yea but like parts of the PNW are >50% hydro too (Seattle is >80%), but they still haven't ever closed the gap to 100% for any significant length of time.

BC Hydro (British Columbia electric power utility, government owned) was 98% renewable sources in 2022, ~91% of that hydro[1] - for the entire province.

that last 2% is going to take a lot of work to replace, but I'd be surprised to see it backslide.

[1] https://www.bchydro.com/content/dam/BCHydro/customer-portal/...

Seattle City Light, according to a 2016 report (and its definitely improved since), was 88% Hydro, 5% nuclear, and 4% wind.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map reports Seattle City Light as 100% hydro, fwiw.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com