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Latin America is set to become a leader in alternative energy
- partycoder 10y agoWhen you sell energy, you have a share of everyone's money, because energy is needed for everything. Solar energy will take a lot of that advantage away and that should create an overall better world.
- devoply 10y agoThough I think the world is going to be a better place. We're headed for a very difficult political reality in my lifetime. We have a whole lot of challenges coming up, and our leaders don't know what to do about them.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoLuckily, on our current trajectory, its not as bad as you'd think. Even without additional political support, clean energy can finally stand on its own. TL;DR The question is no longer if we'll make it, just when. * Solar and wind are stupid cheap now, and getting cheaper, fast. In over 25 states, rooftop solar is a better investment than the S&P500. [1] You're seeing Power Purchase Agreements under 3 cents/KwH. [2] Solar will only get cheaper. Wind is still being built like crazy in Texas and the central Midwestern US. Some utilities even offer power for free at night wind power is so plentiful (and transmission capability lacking). [3] Tesla/SolarCity has already moved into Florida now that the utility-sponsored Amendment 1 failed. (Which was an underhanded utility attempt to hinder rooftop solar deployment) * Utility scale battery storage has arrived. Again, its only going to get cheaper (Tesla's Gigafactory is a big deal, but lots of other players in the market as well) [4] [5] [6]. Tesla has already installed a microgrid on an island in the Pacific that satisfies all of the island's power needs, removing the need for their diesel generators to produce island power. * Tesla will deliver its Model 3 in the next 12-18 months. I have no doubt Elon will drive Tesla into scaling up to 1 million vehicles/year in production (relying primarily on their recent German manufacturing automation acquisition) [7]. While I would like to see Nissan and GM make EVs that aren't purely compliance cars (Bolt? Pleasssssse), I think they're good enough for urban dwellers or car share networks where you're sticking to major metros. (Full disclosure: TSLA investor) * OPEC has finally agreed (after 8 years) to reduce supply to push oil prices back up. Even with US shale coming back online at those profitable market prices ($60-80+/barrel) and some of OPEC cheating on those cuts (who wants to reduce their revenue artificially?), that only does one thing: accelerates the transition to EVs. [8] * Repealing the Clean Power Plan will not be able to stop the phase out of coal power due to cheap natural gas. Market forces at work. [9] * Federal electric vehicle subsides will phase out within the next 2 years for all manufacturers due to hitting the sales quotas dictated by the statute's phaseout provisions [10]. No point in trying to remove them. * Solar and wind ITC tax credit extensions (to 2021) agreed to by Congress were bipartisan. In exchange, restrictions were removed on the export of crude oil from the US. This agreement will not be unwound. [1] https://solarpowerrocks.com/infographics/solar-infographic-state-solar-investment-returns/ https://solarpowerrocks.com/infographics/solar-infographic-s... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-developers-undercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-dev... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/business/energy-environment/a-texas-utility-offers-a-nighttime-special-free-electricity.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/business/energy-environmen... [4] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/tesla-wins-utility-contract-to-supply-grid-scale-battery-storage-after-porter-ranch-gas-leak https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/tesla-win... [5] https://electrek.co/2016/10/25/tesla-powerpack-first-grid-scale-powerpack-installation-asia-pacific/ https://electrek.co/2016/10/25/tesla-powerpack-first-grid-sc... [6] https://electrek.co/2016/11/22/tesla-island-microgrid-battery-solar/ https://electrek.co/2016/11/22/tesla-island-microgrid-batter... [7] https://electrek.co/2016/11/08/tesla-acquires-german-engineering-firm-create-tesla-advanced-automation-germany/ https://electrek.co/2016/11/08/tesla-acquires-german-enginee... [8] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/opec-said-to-agree-oil-production-cuts-as-saudis-soften-on-iran https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/opec-said... [9] http://www.utilitydive.com/news/tva-ceo-clean-power-plan-compliance-natural-gas-part-of-future-strategy/431143/ http://www.utilitydive.com/news/tva-ceo-clean-power-plan-com... [10] https://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/19/how-the-ev-tax-credit-works-tesla-model-3/ https://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/19/how-the-ev-tax-credit-w...
- melling 10y agoSolar is less than 1% of electricity: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3 Current projections have the United States at 10% solar power by 2025: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_St... "A report finds that solar power's contribution could grow to 10% of the nation's power needs by 2025:" I don't think that's enough clean energy to make a sufficient difference. My feeling is that if we were on a good trajectory, Bill Gates and friends wouldn't be looking to create a huge fund for more research: http://qz.com/859860/bill-gates-is-leading-a-new-1-billion-fund-focused-on-combatting-climate-change-through-innovation/?linkId=32225791 http://qz.com/859860/bill-gates-is-leading-a-new-1-billion-f... Being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13155146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13155146
- toomuchtodo 10y ago93% of new generation capacity coming online each month is from renewables, according to the EIAs "Electric Power Monthly" and "Electricity Monthly Update" reports. http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/ http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/
- melling 10y agoI think you're reading it wrong: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_es1b http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm... Natural gas: 1,087,236 1,011,464 7.5% Solar: 28,058 19,684 42.5% A lot more natural gas came online than solar. The solar percentage is so high because it's an increase over a much smaller number.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoEDIT: I included natural gas in the total generation mix. That's my mistake. I don't discount additional natural gas coming online; that's a good thing. It throttles faster than nuclear and coal, and produces far less CO2 than coal generation. Natural gas is almost a requirement as renewables scale up until batteries for utility scale storage have dropped in price to be competitive. This is already happening: Tesla is contracting with several utilities to replace their natural gas peaker plants with battery storage substations. http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25172 http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=25172 "Electric generating facilities expect to add more than 26 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid during 2016. Most of these additions come from three resources: solar (9.5 GW), natural gas (8.0 GW), and wind (6.8 GW), which together make up 93% of total additions. If actual additions ultimately reflect these plans, 2016 will be the first year in which utility-scale solar additions exceed additions from any other single energy source."
- formula1 10y agoI think your giving more power to politics than they deserve. They are effectively Coorperations pawns
- greglindahl 10y agoThis is an interesting setup -- because the example solar plant is in Chile, which has a LOT of hydropower, they can plug in a lot of wind and solar without having to worry as much about storage.
- llekn 10y agoWell, is not as simple as it seems. Indeed, here in Chile we have a lot of hydropower, but the overwhelming majority of it is located on the center and south of the country (where most of the population lives), while the big solar projects are located on the north (where most of the mining activity happens). Being such a long country this means that there are big distances between hydropower and solar plants (1500+kms) rendering inefficient to make use of combined energy sources due to energy loss on the transmission lines and the cost of building these transmission lines. In fact, the power grids of the north (SING) and the power grids on the south/center (SIC) are not yet connected [0], causing a huge excess of energy on the north system due to the recent addition of solar plants. The excess of energy is being sold to Argentina [1] instead of being used on the south, making me wonder what interesting things we should be doing with this excess... (mining bitcoins, datacenters, etc). [0] http://www.nuevamineria.com/revista/se-nos-viene-la-interconexion-sic-sing/ http://www.nuevamineria.com/revista/se-nos-viene-la-intercon... [1] http://fen.uahurtado.cl/2016/noticias/quien-lo-diria-chile-exporta-energia-electrica-y-gas-a-argentina/ http://fen.uahurtado.cl/2016/noticias/quien-lo-diria-chile-e...
- m_mueller 10y agoFWIW I made a map this year about Non Fossil electricity usage around the world and the results are quite surprising actually, supporting the article for the most part. Btw. this was surprisingly quick to do with google spreadsheets. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16K4gNhy_AN8Eg4Ov3z7pF_dgON1oObkHQ8Px5I73Hvc/pubhtml# https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16K4gNhy_AN8Eg4Ov3z7p...
- simonbw 10y agoI hovered over Luxembourg and it told me they have -6.0% non-fossil-fuel electricity.
- raz32dust 10y agoNice work! It will be nice to have individual energy source percentage as well in the 3rd tab (Fossil <30% tab).
- m_mueller 10y agoThanks. See the update just now - tried to reduce it to first principles ;).
- patall 10y agoYou can stand to it as you wish but by which means is nuclear power a renewable? (See France with 91%+ renewable with mostly nuclear power) Edit: Or non-fossil, if that is a difference
- m_mueller 10y agoRight now I'm most worried about two places when it comes to carbon footprint: US and India. The US is very worrysome now, India in a decade or two. China is worrysome as well, but at least there you can see progress being made on a national scale, which can't really be said yet about the US, and with a Trump administration I'm afraid that even commercial attempts could be spoiled again with an artificially propped up fossil fuel economy. If that happens it's borderline suicidal really.
- CptJamesCook 10y ago80 percent of China's energy production comes from coal. 33 percent of the USA's energy production comes from coal. Although another 33 percent comes from natural gas, which is far from clean. Given that they have 4 times America's population, I'd say China is still very worrisome.
- m_mueller 10y agoChina has a long way to go for sure. It's just that I do get the impression that the Chinese government is pushing clean energy not just for show. If any place can do massive changes in just one or two decades, it's (atm) China. And since they currently need to find ways to become a fully developed nation with high tech exports anyway, energy tech certainly seems like a good bet. That's why I'm more worried about the US - yes the numbers currently point to China first, but in the US all indicators in the government point to the wrong direction.
- SnowingXIV 10y agoThe numbers point to China first, how does that not worry you? You say they can do massive changes in a few decades, you could say that about anyone even the U. S. and we're still far from where we should be. Just because current policy looks like they "heading" that direction this doesn't hold much weight. China is going to do what is best for them economically, while I'd say it's probably smart to invest and make strides now they might not see it that way. I also don't blame them because we had years throughout the industrial revolution with no penalty to get booming. They could view this as it's their turn to crank out everything they can.
- bgammon 10y agoWhile riding in an Uber through Washington DC, my dad and I had a chat with the driver about his plans to build two solar installations in the US. He also mentioned the likelihood that their company would soon enter Latin America, where higher electricity rates for consumers would allow them to make more money for selling the same amount of electricity compared to the US. He said this was the main angle he was using to attract investors.
- iamskeptic 10y agoI'd be curious to understand how driving a Uber fits into that strategy.
- pavlov 10y agoMaybe driving a Uber in Washington DC lets you meet some interesting/useful people?
- jacobush 10y agoFood on the table until investors found?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ChrisjayHenn 10y agoI would also guess it's a networking strategy.
- roninb 10y agoPlenty of Uber drivers only drive customers when they're already heading from one place to another. Since you pick what fares you want to take, a professional leaving from Fairfax to, say, NW DC can exclusively accept a fare going from their relative location to their relative destination. This wastes maybe a couple of minutes. But it does provide company and perhaps an added member to your network, all while earning you (perhaps negligible amounts of...) money. All this to say, maybe they can run a startup and drive Uber.
- alexpoulsen 10y agoThe most important part of this article was a mention of connecting national grids. If we had a global grid, the section of earth with enough sunlight could power the rest of the world. And hence no need for non-renewable energy.
- hrxn 10y agoWell, transmitting all this energy is not that trivial, that's the point..
- u42p37yYYRjvhD 10y agohaha this better be a fuckin joke down here everything is coal poweered
- hrxn 10y agoWell, what can you expect from The Economist? It's the age of fake news, after all, right? Do you think someone went there and bothered to actually check how things really are at that place? Way too expensive, fake news is just cheaper :)
- sctb 10y agoThis account has been posting only uncivil and unsubstantive comments, and we ban those that do this. Please read the welcome page and guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- TheAceOfHearts 10y agoCalling it "alternative energy" always strikes me as a bit silly. It's an alternative source, the energy stays the same. From my limited research into energy sources, both solar and wind seem like good short-term goals. The fundamental problems with both seems to be that it's not viable in many locations and it's not steady or predictable. With the space craze that has started developing in the last few years, I'm hopeful people will open up more to the idea of nuclear power. Nuclear is our only path to the stars! The article left me with more questions than answers. How do they define being a "leader in alternative energy", and why is it important? They don't provide enough evidence to prove this is the case. How do their efforts compare to other countries around the world? What effects would we expect this have on the host country? e.g. improved economy, quality of life, etc.?
- patall 10y agoSolar energy is a very long-term goal if you include a dyson sphere in your calculation. And even less long-term, it is not that bad for space travel as you have more and especially 24h coverage without an atmosphere and a planet to block the view. Even on earth, cheap wind and solar power may be used in the near future for (more) long term storage solutions like power-to-gas etc. With 3ct per kWh as currently planned in Dubai, that is entirely feasible. Nuclear power (I am not speaking about fusion as that is still down the road) is to the contrary rather short-term as the sources for uranium etc. are somewhat limited. And it wont get cheaper anymore. On the contrary we are still detecting down-sides of nuclear energy like it was detected in recent years that around nuclear plants there are significantly less female life birth and increased child tumor rates. Not much but for still around a thousand girls for a normal power plant over its life time. Of course, coal is not better in that regard but wind and solar are or at least will be.
- pjc50 10y agoNuclear is too slow and too expensive. Even once you get past the permitting objections, it takes a long time to build the plants. And building nuclear plants in countries that don't currently have any is extremely problematic because of the arms proliferation question. I suspect that's a big factor in South America. I don't really see what nuclear has to do with space. Our short-to-medium term life is a question of keeping Earth safe, both politically and environmentally. While the energy costs of rockets are individually huge they're still not a significant percentage of our global energy consumption. The uplands of Chile, Peru, Bolivia etc are particularly suitable for solar, entirely viable and cloudless for most of the year. I've been to the altiplano: this https://www.flickr.com/photos/136766297@N06/21300817773/in/album-72157657104598053/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/136766297@N06/21300817773/in/a... is a short drive from La Paz, 4000m above sea level and 16 degrees south of the equator. Ideal landscape for solar farming. Edit: just remembered, while I was there I saw the floating islands of Lake Titicaca, which is an incredible way for people to live; a sort of houseboat built of reeds. The only modern convenience was a TV ... powered from a solar panel and car battery. Solar hot water is also already ubiquitous at that latitude - all you have to do is put a black barrel on your roof.