Wild that you're getting downvoted for saying something so obvious. Weird.
The inevitability of the energy transition has been obvious for so long, and even when it’s done there will be cranks insisting that it’ll never work.
We don't produce solar panels or have the materials to produce them in Europe. So we're just as dependent on imports as before.
And even if you don't make them yourselves, they aren't make and then burn like fossil fuels, they are durable infrastructure, you don't have to replace them often - they have an expected lifespan of >30 years. Buy as many as China will sell you, and once you have more than enough installed, you're good for a long time, regardless of whether they cut you off.
I think being reliant on the fossil fuel supply chain for so long, it's a bit tricky to mindset shift that once these things are installed, you're just good. And they're super fungible, you don't need any precision replacement parts, so you can make your own replacement parts if you want.
More like <25 years.
> I think being reliant on the fossil fuel supply chain for so long
France isn't. And they are net exporting their (nuclear fission) electricity to their neighbours who shut down nuclear power plants.
Unlike what you imply, they don't explode and you have to replace them all. They just keep producing, but less.
If you chase down all inputs into everything you need to generate power you will find you're not truly independent from anyone. But solar panels and various other renewables hardware is much easier to stockpile than oil.
> but there is nothing inevitable about it
The Middle East is not going back to normal any time soon. The Israeli/US attack on Iran is a strategic catastrophe, implemented by two felons advised by ideologues and incompetents. The conditions are right to make oil more expensive for a long time, regardless of the outcome of the war. True peace is very unlikely to never be achieved. For instance: Iran now has a massive incentive to build nukes.
Meanwhile solar panel, wind farm, and battery prices are dropping like a rock and they avoid all of the problems of oil. Only the most ideologically fixated wouldn't invest in and install renewables. Anything that makes huge amounts of money is indeed inevitable.
Huge difference between tranistioning to renewables and going completely de-centralised. Even if we put a limit to the latter at the community level, it's a recipe for de-industrialisation. Centralised power production, even with renewables, has economies of scale, and those economies amplify with volatile demand sources, e.g. residences.
When you consider the logistics of strengthening the last mile of residential to accommodate EVs in a sparsely populated place like the US (or rather the apparent lack of political will to do so) it starts to look extremely attractive.
There is a middle ground: decentralize enough to run essential services. Run the rest through the grid. The big downside to decentralising residential power is that's variable demand–precisely the sort of demand you can net out against other parts of the grid. The sort of variance that makes grids more economic than everyone powering themselves.
(Again, in rural settings, yes–decentralise.)
Residential is variable but for the most part not all that amenable to time shifting, at least at present. Isn't a grid most efficient with a constant load, with the next best being something that varies only slowly over time and is highly predictable?
Then there's EVs. I'm under the impression that replacing a notable fraction of the ICE cars on the road with EVs would at present place the grid over capacity most places in the US.
When it comes to unit cost doesn't the ultimate benefit here lie with the consumer's pocketbook? I don't see why residential considerations should make much (or even any) difference to dense commercial or extremely high capacity industrial users. Given that solar plus battery is reasonably affordable for a large chunk of the US population it doesn't really seem like much of a downside when framed as a voluntary expense. I still see people building it out where I'm at (suburbs) despite (AFAIK) the subsidies ending.
That’s fine. A solar system specced to a house has to meet its max drawdown. A house connected to a grid can effectively pawn off its unused power to another user. That’s the efficiency of a grid.
> doesn't the ultimate benefit here lie with the consumer's pocketbook?
Yes. The NPV of a blended system (solar, maybe battery and grid) almost always beats going all in on one or the other. You spec to your base load and put the uncertainty on the grid. That way you don’t have to overprovision solar and battery. (And you’re good with your essentials if the power goes out.)
This is almost universally true unless you have super-subsidized solar (bonus points for an expensive grid, e.g. California) or stupidly-cheap and reliable grid power (until recently, the Gulf).
_grabbing popcorn_
Like you say, I want trains - proper infrastructure supported renewables, not Teslas - home individual infra only affordable by wealthy individuals at the cost of shared infrastructure while lowering resilience because it still uses shared infrastructure.
I think the evidence is overwhelming that renewables plus storage will provide the bulk of our energy needs, or at least electricity needs, in the very near future. But I think the idea that it will be some sort of libertarian/individualistic utopia if we're all generating our own power and living off grid is a fallacy. This sort of widespread "off grid" living (beyond a small number of ideologues/enthusiasts) is what you only see essentially in failed states, where communal services are unreliable and the social contract is so frayed that people need to inefficiently generate their own power. One can argue the US and other Western countries are headed that way, but I don't think that's "obvious" or necessarily a good thing.
A much more "obvious" solution IMO is to invest in efficient, grid-scale renewable generation combined with robust storage tiers, as well us long overdue updates to the grid.
And to emphasize, because I'm sure it will get lost in translation, I'm in no way saying people shouldn't be self-sufficient or install rooftop solar if they want to. What I am saying is that widespread rooftop solar as the "of course that's the right answer" endgame of renewables deployment is in no way obvious, inevitable or even desirable.
Individual rooftop solar + home batteries _is_ how we're doing this in Australia. You can connect your home setup directly to the wholesale grid and import/export electricity at appropriate times.