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These costs are always misrepresented, even here on HN where people should know better. Incremental costs on a sunny day do not represent the true cost of a re
by q1w2 5y ago
These costs are always misrepresented, even here on HN where people should know better. Incremental costs on a sunny day do not represent the true cost of a renewable system.
They never include massive battery costs, and are never designed to provide robust baseload power. The grid needs to be up 99.5% of the time. The rule of thumb in engineering is that every 9 costs another 10x - and this applies to energy production most especially.
It's such an absolute cluster-F that I honestly believe the renewables and anti-nuclear movements in the West are promoted by the Russian FSB.
- cpleppert 5y agoYeah, not quite sure what to say at this point. It's been pointed out over and over that wind and solar do not provide reliable power and apparently that point just goes over people's heads? What do people think Germany has massive subsidies for? Yet every discussion has claims about how energy storage is somehow a solved problem; usually with some handwaving about pump storage or how batteries have gotten cheaper. There are, interestingly enough, never any real world examples of this. It's perfectly rational to argue that solar and wind have obvious merits that could be worth subsidizing but that usually isn't the argument. Solar and wind are always cheaper period. Which just isn't true