Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

Solar and batteries are exploding in production, and prices are falling (not increasing.) I mean, sure, there's a point of diminishing returns, but even at last year's prices I'm getting a 17.5% return on investment. Every year that goes by the investment gets cheaper, and the price of electricity goes up, so the savings just get better and better.

And this for a capital spend on equipment with no moving parts, no lubricants, no maintenance schedule (apart from a window-washer a couple times a year.)

It's a no brainer if you live anywhere the sun shines well - and LOTS of people have figured this out, so the amounts being installed are moving the needle.

View on HN

> Solar and batteries are exploding in production, and prices are falling

Sure. Now look at the baseline. We’d need to 10x the growth rate for the numbers to rival the expected growth in power demand. The folks at the tech majors aren’t idiots. If they could buy this cheapest power at scale, they would. Everybody would. One can’t. The panels are easy, but the batteries are back ordered and getting the land and permitting takes years.

I’m in Wyoming. I have seen people spend more time and paperwork getting a wind farm and HVDC line up than an experimental (totally non-economic) nuclear reactor. That doesn’t apply if you’re putting up one windmill to power your off-grid house. But the economics present at that scale diminish when you’re building a fleet of data centre.

In the US, power growth rate is about 1% per annum or about 40GW. AI&crypto is doubling that number to about 2% per annum.

The US is installing solar at a rate of about 40GW per year so we need to 2X it, not 10X it.

China is installing it at a rate of about 10GW per month, so capacity is certainly not the constraint.

> US is installing solar at a rate of about 40GW per year so we need to 2X it, not 10X it

2x means no carbon reduction. 3x means we can close coal by 2040 and decarbonise by 2082 [1]. And “panels are easy.” (We’re not 2 or even 3x’ing deployment inside a decade [2].)

Now look at batteries. Assume we ban EVs and send 100% of production to utilities. 10x.

Solar + wind with batteries only means we burn natural gas. It’s based on the same faulty logic as the failed nuclear-only strategies of yesteryear. It’s what we’re doing right now, which is why we’re installing about 10 GWh a year of natural gas over the 40% it already commands and why trillions are being invested in new natural gas infrastructure [3].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_Un...

[2] https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/

[3] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

> Solar + wind with batteries only means we burn natural gas.

For a while. And much less gas than without the renewables.

A lot of that load increase you are observing is about the change from fossil-fuel cars into electric ones. That one will stop eventually, and you don't want to delay it anyway.

> much less gas than without the renewables

Yes? The point is that we are currently committing ourselves to a fossil fuel energy system through at least the 2080s by not building all the non-emmitting power we can. Those investments not only put down emitting capital equipment, they capitalize a bloc of producers who will do what they must to protect their investment.

> that load increase you are observing is about the change from fossil-fuel cars into electric ones. That one will stop eventually, and you don't want to delay it anyway

No, it's AI. EVs are rolling out much more slowly.

What do you mean by 10x a growth rate? If it's at a CAGR of 15%, you think it needs to be 150%?

If so, I don't think you have the right numbers. We are on track to completely replace all current energy (not electricity, but final usable energy) uses with renewable electricity within 15 years at current growth rates.

Even the most rabid estimates of energy use growth rate are not more than a doubling of total energy services in that time period. And with the growth rate of renewables, we'd be able to adapt to that.

It is true that there is less paperwork for a new natural gas turbine than for most renewable energy, but you also have to get that pipeline of gas built too (which, again, has less paperwork than electric transmission, but you actually still have to do it). Other non-renewable energy isn't going to deploy any faster than renewable energy.

plus with every advancement in cost and efficiency the amount of sun needed reduces. If you're a bit more north you might just need a couple extra panels compared to really sunny places. Even if it's just to offset instead of completely replace other fuels

The viability of solar panels in the north depends on eye watering grid prices, which isn't the case everywhere or all of the year. Whenever it occurs it is generally during winter time when a roof worth of panels provides a mere trickle of energy.

I considered some small-medium batteries and panels but the calculation came out massively in favor of putting the same bundle of cash into a financial investment portfolio instead.

I'm 100% with you here (see my comment above about fusion economics.)

But solar doesn't have to be local. Upgrading the grid to move large volumes of electricity from mid to high latitudes changes your equation somewhat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com