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It's unstoppable because clean energy is - by far and no small margin - the most economical option to generate energy. Meaning that recessions and messing with
by jillesvangurp 3y ago
It's unstoppable because clean energy is - by far and no small margin - the most economical option to generate energy. Meaning that recessions and messing with tax incentives has a short term effect of slowing down but not stopping the transition. Regardless of any incentives, economics still apply and people use those to their advantage.
We've long crossed the point where renewables are dependent on incentives to make them economical. IEA is known for their conservative predictions. So, them saying that this might be true means it's basically a done deal and that they can no longer deny this is happening.
Other side effects of recessions and fossil fuel price induced inflation include increased price sensitivity for things like oil and gas. Those things suddenly getting very expensive are a main driver of people wanting to reduce their dependence on those things.
I don't get your vehicle emissions formula. How does the years of service reduce the emissions when literally every mile you drive them blows more emissions out of the tailpipe? If anything, that only gets worse for older vehicles because their engines wear out and the fuel efficiency drops. Tail pipe emissions are gigantic for these vehicles. This is not reduced in any way by the years of service. Any year you drive these things longer, you add to that. It's a cumulative effect. You drive 15000 miles in an old car in a year doing 10 miles to the gallon (which would be very nice for an old car), that's 1500 gallons of fuel in a year. That's a lot of CO2 emissions and other pollution. Add to that oil changes, new parts, etc. And it only gets worse.
And the economics of this are that have to buy that fuel. Every year. Depending what state you are in that could be as much as 5$/gallon. So, 7500/year. The economics of that are pretty terrible. Adds up to a new Tesla Model 3 in about 5-7 years basically. That's excluding maintenance of course. Also not nothing for an old car.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago> It's unstoppable because clean energy is - by far and no small margin - the most economical option to generate energy. That's the reason why Germany and Denmark have one of the most expensive electricity prices in EU?
- throwaway473825 3y agoGermany has very high taxes on electricity: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/berlin-considers-slashing-electricity-tax-by-95-to-boost-heat-pump-uptake/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/ber... It also doesn't help that Germany still uses a lot of gas and coal, the two most expensive common sources of electricity.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoDoes not matter what makes energy expensive. Germans are losing competitiveness of their own industry... because German energy is expensive. If those are just taxes, it should be easy to just slash them? But they are not doing that. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-economy-minister-wants-lower-industry-electricity-costs-billions-subsidies https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-economy-minister...
- jillesvangurp 3y agoPrice and cost are two things. Cost is about the same everywhere. Somebody has to pay for it. The way energy markets work you pay for that indirectly via taxes, subsidies, and other incentives. And you pay some of it directly via whatever price the energy has. And some of the cost is offloaded on future generations via loans or simply deferring spending on e.g. nuclear storage, cleaning up oil spills, and dealing with global warming. That trillion dollar IRA in the US is going to have a cost. I'd say it's a good investment though. But it's not free. There's a reason Danish and German companies currently dominate the exponentially growing market for wind and offshore wind. They have invested wisely into these sectors over the years. The cost for that is indeed reflected out in energy prices. That's not that different from how the US has subsidized in its energy sector via multi trillion dollar wars to secure access to "cheap" oil, lots of government subsidies flowing to oil companies, etc. Just so it can pretend to have cheap energy. And of course as renewable cost drops, those prices can come down too. At this point a lot of the price is actually just paying for US LNG imports (production of which is subsidized in the US!) and coal imports. Getting rid of that dependence is indeed becoming more urgent for the Germans.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoDoes not matter how you want to defend it. German + Danish electricity is on of the most expensive in Europe, despite lot of renewables, which should have made it cheap. And it is especially stupid to defend high prices while you are trying to electrify your a car fleet.