5 ms·

It seems reasonable to me that the transition to renewables will make energy even cheaper, and absolutely less dependent on international markets (like the litt

by beat 7y ago

It seems reasonable to me that the transition to renewables will make energy even cheaper, and absolutely less dependent on international markets (like the little problem that 40% of internationally exchanged oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz). So it's almost certainly a good thing for poorer nations. Contrast this with the ever-popular HN push for nuclear power. Many nations lack the infrastructure to support such a complex and expensive endeavor, and some frankly can't be trusted with it. So a nuclear future is far, far worse than a renewable future. Oil won for good reasons a hundred years ago. And it's going to lose for good reasons over the next hundred years.

ThomPete 7y ago
Which renewables are you referring to? What renewables can both give us plastic, pesticides, concrete? What renewables can deliver cheap, reliable, scalable energy anywhere needed? The most popular forms of renewables like wind and solar are not even close to being stable, reliable or cheap, furthermore they only deliver electricity which is what? 20% of the total energy needs? Nuclear is expensive because of the regulations not because of technology and more people die from wind and solar than from nuclear. Having been involved in investing in this space it's pretty obvious that we aren't even close to having alternatives, as in not even in a couple of decades. You take away the Chinese investment in renewables and the rest of the world's investment in renewables are falling not rising and even with the Chinese investments it's stalling. There is such an insane amount of groupthink going on here that I know people aren't going to actually accept it but it's very easy to get a reality check simply by taking $10K and find a company which you trust will succeed after you do due diligence. You will quickly find out that we are kind of at the forefront of energy and alternatives where we are and that means less than 1% of the worlds global energy consumption (not just electricity) is wind and solar. A far cry from what you will hear german and danish politicians claim.
- beat 7y ago
  Ok, you're just wrong on some of this stuff. When I say "renewable", I mean wind and solar for the most part, so keep that in mind. No, renewables don't solve the plastic/pesticides/concrete problem. It's energy, not hardware. Renewables can and do deliver cheap, reliable, scalable energy. The automobile is a really good example of that, and electric cars are quickly edging out internal combustion. I imagine we're no more than two decades from total electric car base. There is such a thing as batteries, you know. Wind and solar are only delivering x% of our power now, but time moves, and they are growing exponentially. Their lower cost provides a strong financial incentive to do all new construction in renewables. So again, over the next few decades, we will transition to a mostly-renewable grid. Nuclear is expensive because it's hard, not because of "regulation". And considering the track record of the industry and the consequences of failure, I'm all for the regulation. If regulation was the problem, we'd see more nuclear in nations with very little environmental regulation and strong central governments, like Russia and China. But they still only get a small fraction of their power from nuclear, and it's about to be outstripped by renewables. Because renewable is much cheaper. I wouldn't invest in the industry because a: speculating on individual companies is just gambling (an industry fund would be different), and b: the cost of energy is going to go down, so profit margins won't be great. It'll wipe out the fossil energy industry, but the end result will be the world spending less money for more energy. Bad investment, good for humanity.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Renewables can and do deliver cheap, reliable, scalable energy. The automobile is a really good example of that, and electric cars are quickly edging out internal combustion. I imagine we're no more than two decades from total electric car base. There is such a thing as batteries, you know. The electric cars are still made, transported, maintained, and powered by fossil fuels and nuclear. Renewables at the moment (and for the foreseeable future) can't handle changing the world's fleet (?), or even 20% of it, to electric cars... Renewables are to projected to be around 16%-18% in 2040: "Should progress continue at the pace currently forecast, the share of renewables in final energy consumption would be roughly 18% by 2040" https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/ https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/United_States_electricity_generation_by_fuel_1990-2040.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/United_S...
    - beat 7y ago
      Yes, electric car manufacturing is still done largely with non-renewable sources. But it's happening nonetheless. Manufacturers like Porsche and Volvo expect to be over 50% EV by 2025. Even for fuel-based cars, plug-in hybrids are becoming more common. So the auto industry will be switching quickly. Unfortunately, we will still have other pockets where fossil fuels are much harder to root out - heavy oil for shipping, jet fuel, and the existing base of coal plants that aren't financially viable to replace. But how many decades are left in those coal plants? Who will build a new coal plant to replace the old one? And as gasoline and coal are phased out, they will become more expensive, as economies of scale drop out. Meanwhile, economies of scale in manufacturing are a key reason for the drop in the cost of renewables. Market forces are mostly on the side of renewables here, and trends even more so.
      - ThomPete 7y ago
        "expecting" is the problem word here. That means absolutely nothing. Its marketing talk with no real foundation in reality. Gasoline and coal will be phased out but it's not because of wind and solar as they literally can't deliver what is needed and will need at a minimum nuclear or oil or coal as backup when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. We are nowhere near fuel cells. One could even make a case for us being closer to fusion than fuel cells.
- filoeleven 7y ago
  > What renewables can both give us plastic, pesticides, concrete? Mushrooms! Plastic: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/mushrooms-new-plastic-ecovative https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/mushrooms-n... https://daily.jstor.org/company-uses-mushrooms-grows-plastic-alternatives/ https://daily.jstor.org/company-uses-mushrooms-grows-plastic... Probably not for long-lived plastics, but a horrific amount is single-use. And there’s research into using something similar for medical devices, which may mean longer-term is an option; I’m not sure. Pesticides: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/fungus-based-pesticides-might-be-green-solution-future.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc... Targeting pest species rather than indiscriminate killing. Stamets is also doing successful research into keeping conventional pesticides from killing off bees with mycelium extracts. Concrete: https://interestingengineering.com/future-construction-mushroom-buildings https://interestingengineering.com/future-construction-mushr... Similar to the pesticides, not a drop-in replacement but an alternative technique with some overlap of useful properties. Also we’ve had a few thousand years to experiment with concrete, mychotech is maybe a decade or two old. These aren’t the same renewables that we would use to make energy, but they are renewable alternatives to stuff we use petro or its byproducts for today. And they grow on our waste, reusing more energy than we do now.
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    Not even close to be useful alternatives.
coldtea 7y ago
>It seems reasonable to me that the transition to renewables will make energy even cheaper The transition to renewables will be more like holographic storage, month-long batteries, strong AI, and flying cars -- perpetually in the future, and with small scale, still mainly fossil-backed, wins touted as breakthroughs...

by beat 7y ago

ThomPete 7y ago

Which renewables are you referring to? What renewables can both give us plastic, pesticides, concrete? What renewables can deliver cheap, reliable, scalable energy anywhere needed? The most popular forms of renewables like wind and solar are not even close to being stable, reliable or cheap, furthermore they only deliver electricity which is what? 20% of the total energy needs? Nuclear is expensive because of the regulations not because of technology and more people die from wind and solar than from nuclear. Having been involved in investing in this space it's pretty obvious that we aren't even close to having alternatives, as in not even in a couple of decades. You take away the Chinese investment in renewables and the rest of the world's investment in renewables are falling not rising and even with the Chinese investments it's stalling. There is such an insane amount of groupthink going on here that I know people aren't going to actually accept it but it's very easy to get a reality check simply by taking $10K and find a company which you trust will succeed after you do due diligence. You will quickly find out that we are kind of at the forefront of energy and alternatives where we are and that means less than 1% of the worlds global energy consumption (not just electricity) is wind and solar. A far cry from what you will hear german and danish politicians claim.

beat 7y ago
Ok, you're just wrong on some of this stuff. When I say "renewable", I mean wind and solar for the most part, so keep that in mind. No, renewables don't solve the plastic/pesticides/concrete problem. It's energy, not hardware. Renewables can and do deliver cheap, reliable, scalable energy. The automobile is a really good example of that, and electric cars are quickly edging out internal combustion. I imagine we're no more than two decades from total electric car base. There is such a thing as batteries, you know. Wind and solar are only delivering x% of our power now, but time moves, and they are growing exponentially. Their lower cost provides a strong financial incentive to do all new construction in renewables. So again, over the next few decades, we will transition to a mostly-renewable grid. Nuclear is expensive because it's hard, not because of "regulation". And considering the track record of the industry and the consequences of failure, I'm all for the regulation. If regulation was the problem, we'd see more nuclear in nations with very little environmental regulation and strong central governments, like Russia and China. But they still only get a small fraction of their power from nuclear, and it's about to be outstripped by renewables. Because renewable is much cheaper. I wouldn't invest in the industry because a: speculating on individual companies is just gambling (an industry fund would be different), and b: the cost of energy is going to go down, so profit margins won't be great. It'll wipe out the fossil energy industry, but the end result will be the world spending less money for more energy. Bad investment, good for humanity.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Renewables can and do deliver cheap, reliable, scalable energy. The automobile is a really good example of that, and electric cars are quickly edging out internal combustion. I imagine we're no more than two decades from total electric car base. There is such a thing as batteries, you know. The electric cars are still made, transported, maintained, and powered by fossil fuels and nuclear. Renewables at the moment (and for the foreseeable future) can't handle changing the world's fleet (?), or even 20% of it, to electric cars... Renewables are to projected to be around 16%-18% in 2040: "Should progress continue at the pace currently forecast, the share of renewables in final energy consumption would be roughly 18% by 2040" https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/ https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/United_States_electricity_generation_by_fuel_1990-2040.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/United_S...
  - beat 7y ago
    Yes, electric car manufacturing is still done largely with non-renewable sources. But it's happening nonetheless. Manufacturers like Porsche and Volvo expect to be over 50% EV by 2025. Even for fuel-based cars, plug-in hybrids are becoming more common. So the auto industry will be switching quickly. Unfortunately, we will still have other pockets where fossil fuels are much harder to root out - heavy oil for shipping, jet fuel, and the existing base of coal plants that aren't financially viable to replace. But how many decades are left in those coal plants? Who will build a new coal plant to replace the old one? And as gasoline and coal are phased out, they will become more expensive, as economies of scale drop out. Meanwhile, economies of scale in manufacturing are a key reason for the drop in the cost of renewables. Market forces are mostly on the side of renewables here, and trends even more so.
    - ThomPete 7y ago
      "expecting" is the problem word here. That means absolutely nothing. Its marketing talk with no real foundation in reality. Gasoline and coal will be phased out but it's not because of wind and solar as they literally can't deliver what is needed and will need at a minimum nuclear or oil or coal as backup when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. We are nowhere near fuel cells. One could even make a case for us being closer to fusion than fuel cells.
filoeleven 7y ago
> What renewables can both give us plastic, pesticides, concrete? Mushrooms! Plastic: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/mushrooms-new-plastic-ecovative https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/mushrooms-n... https://daily.jstor.org/company-uses-mushrooms-grows-plastic-alternatives/ https://daily.jstor.org/company-uses-mushrooms-grows-plastic... Probably not for long-lived plastics, but a horrific amount is single-use. And there’s research into using something similar for medical devices, which may mean longer-term is an option; I’m not sure. Pesticides: https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/fungus-based-pesticides-might-be-green-solution-future.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc... Targeting pest species rather than indiscriminate killing. Stamets is also doing successful research into keeping conventional pesticides from killing off bees with mycelium extracts. Concrete: https://interestingengineering.com/future-construction-mushroom-buildings https://interestingengineering.com/future-construction-mushr... Similar to the pesticides, not a drop-in replacement but an alternative technique with some overlap of useful properties. Also we’ve had a few thousand years to experiment with concrete, mychotech is maybe a decade or two old. These aren’t the same renewables that we would use to make energy, but they are renewable alternatives to stuff we use petro or its byproducts for today. And they grow on our waste, reusing more energy than we do now.
- ThomPete 7y ago
  Not even close to be useful alternatives.

coldtea 7y ago

>It seems reasonable to me that the transition to renewables will make energy even cheaper The transition to renewables will be more like holographic storage, month-long batteries, strong AI, and flying cars -- perpetually in the future, and with small scale, still mainly fossil-backed, wins touted as breakthroughs...