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Comment by tonyedgecombe | Hacker News Reader

The further we go down the renewables route the less we depend on despotic states for our energy.

Energy may well be cheap in the US but you have been paying for that for decades through military misadventures in the middle east.

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It’s not possible to truly estimate what our military costs would be without those conflicts, but I would be interested in our energy costs if you incorporated the military costs into that. I’m willing to bet we pay more than nearly anyone else if you lump it in relatively fairly.

The GWOT was 7% of the US military budget. Also, the US doesn't get oil from the Middle East anymore. Its been about 10 years since we did.

We've gotten pretty good at digging holes in the ground and there's a lot of existing energy down there under our land (and near-by water). So yes, we've certainly had misadventures in the middle east, but we've also embraced the "drill baby drill" mantra of late.

Texas is probably our national leader in terms of deploying solar and wind power, which feels ironic but is totally rational and logical.

Who is making all those solar cells and batteries? I'll give you a hint, it's not a European country.

> The further we go down the renewables route the less we depend on despotic states for our energy.

80% of solar panels/batteries/windmills are made in China. We wouldn't even be able to make them without fossil fuels in the first place. Not even talking about the electronics that is needed

German wind turbines largely don't come from China, but even if they did, the difference is that if China stopped selling us solar panels, batteries and wind turbines, the existing infrastructure would continue to function for decades to come while we work out a domestic replacement supply chain.

This is in stark contrast to fossil fuels, where it's infeasible to stockpile more than a few months of usage, and if suppliers turn off the tap, you're at their mercy almost instantly.

If China stopped supplying solar panels or batteries, it'd spark a frenzy of activity and demand for locally produced replacements, and there would be enough time for those to come online.

The rare earths do come from China and that's where most of the environmental damage they cause happens. Rare earths can be mined almost anywhere. They aren't rare but they also aren't concentrated because they aren't water soluble. They are mined in places that don't care about environmental damage, not in places where specific geologic conditions exist (like everything else except AL). Also, you need them to make generators. When you put those generators in wind instead of in hydro or nuclear, you waste them. This is because they will generate 6 to 9 times as much power in hydro or nuclear plants as in a wind turbine.

The generators are not the expensive or hard part of building hydro or nuclear, so I have no idea why you're making that comparison.

Wind power is an incredibly cheap form of power.

Your point about rare earths is more or less covered by my previous comment about solar panels and batteries.

Besides, rare earths is actually a supply chain that's being rapidly de-risked from China as we speak anyways.

Big generators in power plants use alternators with field windings, not permanent magnets. Wind turbines use either permanent magnet generators or induction generators. Permanent magnets generators are more efficient, especially at low wind speeds, but we can do without them if necessary.

> it'd spark a frenzy of activity and demand for locally produced replacements

Now you're just being funny. The reason Chinese solar outcompeted European solar is because China can produce at a lower cost. Yeah, Germany could theoretically produce solar panels in required quantities. However, the price is going to be higher. Which means electricity is going to be more expensive. And expensive electricity is one of the problems for the German industry. Let's not forget that many enterprises will simply not survive while the solar production is ramping up.

The reason Chinese solar outcompeted European solar is partially that China has real lower costs, but was more because China had way way way more appetite for massive subsidies to dominate the market.

They took over the solar market from Germany after Germany foolishly stopped subsidizing it and almsot overnight killed the thriving domestic solar industry.

Chinas solar panels are almost surely being sold internationally for less than they cost to make. If China stopped selling them and domestic producers sprang back up using techniques they've learned from the ongoing solar panel 'recycling' programs, the domestic solar panels would surely be a lot more expensive than Chinese panels, but they'd also almost certainly be cheaper than fossil fuels, and would find a place in the market.

Besides, the cost of panels isn't even the expensive part of solar installations anymore. The expensive part is the land, grid connections, and installation labour.

20 years ago, Germany was among the topleaders in Solar Research & Manufacturing, the Government back then killed the opportunity for they country.

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