World Trying to Quit Fossil Fuels Gets Flood of Gas Instead
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Even after making an Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore personally advocated for natural gas as a transitional source of energy. Places like Germany built their entire grid off of it.
Even though Solar and Wind are exploding at unprecedented levels and they were never, ever going to be able handle all of the global energy needs within the half-century. But we're shutting down coal and no one wants nuclear so gas it is.
But you are correct, that some EU countries lost their source or natural gas (Nord stream 1 & 2 blowed up in 2022) and cannot transition on a whim and so needs gas (liquefied since all previous pipes are not working).
Blackballing nuclear has been the worst environmental decision our society has ever made. We would've solved this problem by now if we had just gone all in on nuclear energy
I think it is interesting that people accuse Germany of being "irrational" while if it was Italy for example, people would immediately call out the corruption.
They would be just as happy to sell Germany whatever technology the government wanted - it's just Germany's very strong green movement was vehemently anti-nuclear. If anything, it was their political entrapment with Russia that created their reliance on cheap natural gas.
But yeah, 20 years ago everyone asked "who's going to be the one to stop the third world from touching these resources" and no one had an answer so here we are.
I am not saying I'm not going to invest in solar and wind again, but until I see returns on my investments I've made, I'm not putting a dime more into it. I am not the only one with this position. You don't invest to lose money. They sold investors over the past 15 years their idea that they would make money off this alternative energy, and we're not. The big guys are taking the little guys money, divesting, and leaving us holding the bag of crap.
The costs for solar and wind are exorbitant compared to oil and gas. A turbine costs twice what well does, and it takes almost 20 years to recover the investment.
People need to understand what is happening, and the reality of alternative investments.
What they did to Haiti was horrible
> The big guys are taking the little guys money, divesting, and leaving us holding the bag of crap.
You're not one of the little guys. You're not the one who's going to be left holding the bag. The real "bag" isn't underperforming investments. It's ecosystem collapse.
> People need to understand what is happening
We understand what is happening and one day this will be used as evidence to hold you accountable for your role in it.
Haters plz: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
1) Is the issue here that the payoff is too slow? E.g., costs X to build a turbine but you only get back 10% of X each year, so it takes decades to get returns---whereas with a well, it costs Y but then with 20% probability you start getting back 50% of Y each year? in other words, the return to a successful well is huge, but there's some risk associated with each one?
2) Or, are wholesale electricity prices going down (because of glut of gas, etc.) and so rosy projections of solar/wind recoupment rates aren't being met?
Mostly I'm curious if it's the dynamics of individual projects here that make wells more attractive than alternatives, or if there's something else at play.
Thanks (in advance)!
As for wind, you normally buy into them differently. You don't buy shares, you buy into a partnership. This is the first problem with them. They're taxed multiple times, a franchise tax, state income tax, and federal income tax, then you're taxed. But before even that, you have to buy or lease the land, pay for the electrical lines, ..., then you have transmission costs, ... If it's leased, then the landowner is getting a huge chunk. The lawsuits are ridiculous. They also over sell a project, and give these guys finders fees, and every other kind of fee you can think of for bringing in investors. It is a racket. The turbine itself won't produce enough wholesale electricity to pay for its self for years. That means everyone down the food chain is waiting to get paid.
A2. Electricity prices are reflected on the costs of the plants or farms generating the power. The market ultimately determines this price on the other side. You'll have to consult with an economist to understand how that all works. I don't know if I even know how it works.
Alternative energy has been sold to make a few people rich. You have the guys that believe the sky is falling (REMEMBER: Greenland was Green) and are perpetuating a lot of this. We have pollution problems, not climate problems. This needs to be put back into perspective. Save the rainforest, protect it, but don't tell people solar is going to stop pollution, and save the rainforest. Stop cutting down the rainforest to put up wind turbines.
A well can be capped and cleaned up. Once solar farms have stopped making money, which you will see soon, you will have a horizon of wind turbines falling apart and creating a bigger problem than a well. Energy isn't free. There is no such thing as carbon-neutral energy production.
And we have utilities in one of the most solar-friendly states trying to whittle down the financial incentives for people to even install solar to start with: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2022-12-...
And even more wild is their income based utility bills https://www.kpbs.org/news/local/2023/09/13/californias-futur... which will further reduce solar interest because people who can now afford it and can get a bill discount will have to pay $$$ just because their income is higher with no relief offered by the panels.
There are other ways to make green energy price competitive like subsidies. But then you could be paying the same amount of money without the guarantee that you are actually offsetting carbon.
Give businesses a financial incentive to do it and they will. But acting surprised and getting upset that people are making the best economic decisions for themselves is a loser's game.
I guess we're still churning away at that tech tree. ;)
Then we can start the next game, but it's less fun and has fewer players.
https://www.hoefner.ch/2024/01/09/oeko-rucksaecke-aus-pfaeff... (German)
Edit: also, voters really really don't want expensive energy. In the US, the Biden administration blocking fossil fuel development would spike gas prices and power bills, which would almost guarantee a Trump win in 2024 and even more fossil fuel growth (plus tons of other bad stuff). Democracies can't sustainably enact policies that their voters strongly oppose.
The issue is situations like the UK granting leases for gas they won't use, but simply export.
There may be an equilibrium needed to keep balance while renewables keep moving towards dominance, but a lot of the gas projects right now are initiated for short-term takings more than stability and current demand.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2023/08/06/global-energ...
I've been following things fairly closely both from a broad range of sources (fossil fuels, green energy, nuclear power, climate science), and it isn't at all clear to me that solar and wind are sustainably manufactured -- a lot of coal being used to manufacture solar panels with a finite lifespan. At worst these panels will end up in a landfill in 30 years.
The amount of mining to get the batteries is a real problem too. Right now, there is about a 20 year lead time to get a new mine approved, built, and online right now. Instead of expanding production, we have things like First Quantum's Cobre mine in Panama being shut down (which could be as much as 2% of global copper production.) In a short term it's a win for reducing fossil fuel use - the only "clean" method of powering these massive mining projects requires nuclear reactors on site, which no one is doing.
Forget what that does to increasing the cost of a clean energy project, we can't do any more than the resources exist to do. For software developers used to thinking in infinitely scaling AWS clusters and copy and paste code, this is a very different paradigm.
The really wealthy countries, especially the smaller European ones, or city states like Singapore, could probably go 100% "clean" in terms of electricity and transportation, excluding air travel and ocean transport. The amount of resources it will take somewhere like India, and maintain their standard of living, doesn't seem possible.
I don't think the debates people are having right now are productive or realistic. No matter what, we will eventually run out of non-renewable resources and certainly the climate will change substantially. There are good arguments to be made that we are already past the turn back point. Yet, the lack of realistic discussion about how existing supply chains work and how they are going to scale past the wealthiest countries makes me think the odds of any real solution in the next few decades is nearly non-existent.
Ethanol and wood pellets can absolutely be produced sustainably and with positive EROEI, so I'm not sure what the connection is here. Yes, they're not amazing from a pollution perspective, but they can be net-zero from an eCO2 perspective.
One take here is that capitalism has a lot of flaws, but price action stimulating investment isn't one of them. There are quite a few executives with $$$ in their eyes figuring out how to get the raw materials needed for this transition. Moore's law has lasted us nearly 60 years, a result of a mix of process improvements--old ideas done better--as well as new techniques. Pointing out how our current resource extraction isn't enough to satisfy the world's energy needs in 20 years is a little bit like pointing out that current tech isn't enough to keep Moore's law going. It's not wrong! But it also rests on the assumptions about what's possible that may not be true.
I'm not sure I follow how that is true. Mining doesn't care where the power comes from, and while you do lose energy when you transmit power there is some loss, but it still works. I would think, if anything, hydro power would be preferable, because it also comes with an ample supply of water, which is also needed for most mining operations.
There's a lot of other reasons not to want natural gas to be expensive. Expensive gas makes coal & oil more attractive. It also feeds Putin's empire. It also encourages more investment in fracking.
This is all good news.