5 ms·

It’s almost like renewable energy was suppressed for years and now that we have it somehow it actually works?!? What?

by datahack 2y ago

sumedh 2y ago
> It’s almost like renewable energy was suppressed for years Who suppressed it?
- porphyra 2y ago
  The fossil fuel industry is well known for lobbying and trying all sorts of underhanded tactics to give themselves subsidies and undermine renewables.
  - DavidPiper 2y ago
    Especially here in Australia, where we happen to (still) be the world's largest coal exporter.
    - doctor_eval 2y ago
      Yes, and apparently we will soon be the world’s largest user of small modular reactors*. I can’t wait. * nonsense Australian opposition talking point intended only to extend the life of fossil fuels in this country. https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-plan-to-nuke-australias-renewable-energy-transition-explained-in-full/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-plan-to-nuke-australias-...
      - DavidPiper 2y ago
        I'm not at all across the Nuclear Energy political discourse, though I understand it's a uh... hot topic here. The article you linked is about what I would expect from both sides. Theoretically I'm not against nuclear power. It's miles better than coal and oil, and Reactor design and safety has come a long way. France is a great example of a country who has made it work. However. It kind of seems unnecessary at this point. Solar and wind are cheaper, and already have industries in hockey-stick growth - including Lithium which Australia is also getting better at (locally and with Australian-owned companies abroad). Australia's key strength has always[1] been digging stuff out of the ground, and we still get to do that in a renewable future. Solar and wind also don't have black swan risks like nuclear - regardless of how much safer its become - and they're distributed, with fault tolerance / buffers built in by batteries. I assume the Libs' nuclear plan does not include building a ton of batteries to address those issues. I feel like we've just leapfrogged Nuclear as a useful solution, similar to the way many developing countries will be able to leapfrog entire industrial revolutions once clean energy is ubiquitous. Investing in nucalear at this point would literally be going backwards. [1] "Dale dug a hole"
        defrost 2y ago
        > I'm not at all across the Nuclear Energy political discourse ... The article you linked is about what I would expect from both sides. If you only read (or skim) one technical report on Australia's energy needs and potential solutions: GenCost: cost of building Australia’s future electricity needs Each year, CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) collaborate with industry stakeholders to update GenCost. This leading economic report estimates the cost of building new electricity generation, storage, and hydrogen production in Australia out to 2050. Large-scale nuclear technology costs included for the first time. Renewables remain the lowest cost new build electricity technology. https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/GenCost https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Gen... It's not policy, it's relatively neutral CSIRO advice. Six page summary: https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Final_Executive-summary.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Fi... Nuclear came out as not available for quite some time (in Australia) and even then still the most expensive overall which caused the report to slammed as a product of anti nuclear lefty scientists by the Liberal | Murdoch crowd. (For a year prior to release it was hailed as the report that would prove doing nothing until off the shelf nuclear was a thing was the one true way).
        doctor_eval 2y ago
        I don’t have strict view on nuclear but the link I posted goes into detail about why the current proposals are nonsense. There is zero chance that the technology being mooted will be available in the given timeline. The purpose of nuclear power in the current Australian debate is purely to stall renewables in favour of fossil fuel. That’s it. Presumably there’s a money trail leading to certain hyper-wealthy, vocal Australians.
        energy123 2y ago
        The problem with the Australian Coalition's nuclear plan is it isn't a nuclear plan. It's a coal plan disguised as a nuclear plan. They're a party that's bought and paid for by coal interests who were in power recently for a decade and did nothing to kickstart nuclear. They got voted out partly due to inaction on climate change so they realised they need to propose something. Their half-hearted proposal will deliver less than 15% of the grid to nuclear by 2040, while stopping renewables, and being more expensive. Beyond the political, here's some more technical reasons why Australia shouldn't pursue it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40747810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40747810
- anakaine 2y ago
  We are still seeing the effects of negative sentiment campaigns even today through industry lobbyists and social media campaigns. There is an unusually large number of people and opinions aligned against renewable claiming that they are unreliable, cannot produce, are environmentally worse than their peers, etc. None of which are factually true aside from issues on cloudy windless days. Suppression is probably the wrong term, but it's naive to believe that there isnt a counter campaign against their uptake being funded by various pure play fossil fuel providers. I used to work for a company who was one such organisation, we had several PhDs funded through industry bodies we ultimately funded directly and through subsidiaries who had sold their soul to produce material using their "doctor" titles to demonstrate that coal was good for the environment, that wind turbines killed birds in extraordinary numbers and sent people mad, and the solar was poisoning the environment because of a lack of recycling capability. All largely false claims and often based on 30-40 year old early availability chemistry which was no longer in use. It was absolutely disgusting behaviour.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    This seems to be overlooking the largest factor, which is that "renewables are cheaper!" has been a claim in the discourse for something like 20+ years and was a lie for most of that time. It is taking people a while to come around to the idea that this time the claim is serious. There are obvious failures from pushing renewables - Germany springing to mind, or any number of solar subsidies that proved uneconomic - and it was completely reasonable to wait for some demonstrated successes.
    - anakaine 2y ago
      This is a great example of how point data has been used to reinforce that negative sentiment, and how we need to readdress that sentiment given that over the past decade to 15 years the benefit has swung strongly in favour of renewables as a way to bolster the grid and improve energy security. The rejections ignored the incoming economy of scale and ramping of manufacturing, instead focusing on an immediate cost comparisson instead of a reformed market and lifetime project benefit cost scale. When you plan out the lifetime finances for a fossil fuel project, you use the latter. The arguments were perverted to ignore benefits in order to ensure current fossil fuel projects were able to remain generating a profit for as long as possible, minimising their debt and heading towards profitability. As stated, I've been behind that curtain first hand, and my engineering background is in planning out the lifetime of a resource and how to best exploit it. But let's look at some numbers Australia, 2023:, renewable 1/4 the cost of nuclear: https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/husic/media-releases/gencost-confirms-renewables-remain-cheapest-form-energy-cost-nuclear-reactors-skyrocket https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/husic/media-r... IRENA, 2022: "For the last 13 to 15 years, renewable power generation costs from solar and wind power have been falling. Between 2010 and 2022, solar and wind power became cost-competitive with fossil fuels even without financial support. The global weighted average cost of electricity from solar PV fell by 89 per cent to USD 0.049/kWh, almost one-third less than the cheapest fossil fuel globally. For onshore wind the fall was 69 per cent to USD 0.033/kWh in 2022, slightly less than half that of the cheapest fossil fuel-fired option in 2022." Germany, suffered from early mover issues in ~2015 combined with poor winter planning, however is now reaping the benefits of cheaper generation cost to offset gas supply shortages for baseload due to European supply restrictions, 2021: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2021/levelized-cost-of-electricity-renewables-clearly-superior-to-conventional-power-plants-due-to-rising-co2-prices.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/... Even the UK prime minister Boris Johnson, a conservative pundit, went on record as stating that renewables were the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to shore up the energy grid and remove dependence upon Russian oil and gas. This is a nice nod to the fact that the UK has been bulk importing Scottish renewable energy to ward against the massive price increases caused in Europe by the gas supply restriction: http://scotsman.com/news/environment/sustainable-scotland-without-energy-storage-the-uk-will-miss-net-zero-targets-and-continue-to-rely-on-foreign-imports-for-power-developer-warns-3633 http://scotsman.com/news/environment/sustainable-scotland-wi... Failing any rational risk taking due to the above illustrations, it's also critical that we reduce our greenhouse emissions. Another topic that is hotly debated when it really is straight forward. Even if renewables were to cost more, the educated policy makers would still steer toward either making them cheaper or installing them if the difference was marginal simply to ensure long term stability, maximising distributed generation and attempting to minimise the effects of a changing climate.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  The folks who hadn't invented good enough storage yet. If we didn't have that, we'd still need other sources for night and winter and bad weather.
- kumarvvr 2y ago
  Fossil fuel industry, indirectly, by taking subsidies. This masked the true cost of fuels from public.
- sunflowerfly 2y ago
  Here in rural America, farmers putting signs in their fields stating “stop solar”, and “stop wind energy” are common. What is the source of the propaganda convincing them to do this?
richie-guix 2y ago
[flagged]
- datahack 2y ago
  I just want you to know that kind of uncalled for unkind behavior doesn’t have a place here on HN. Please do better in future. This isn’t Reddit.
  - richie-guix 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - slater 2y ago
      "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - richie-guix 2y ago
        [flagged]

It’s almost like renewable energy was suppressed for years and now that we have it somehow it actually works?!? What?

sumedh 2y ago

> It’s almost like renewable energy was suppressed for years Who suppressed it?

porphyra 2y ago
The fossil fuel industry is well known for lobbying and trying all sorts of underhanded tactics to give themselves subsidies and undermine renewables.
- DavidPiper 2y ago
  Especially here in Australia, where we happen to (still) be the world's largest coal exporter.
  - doctor_eval 2y ago
    Yes, and apparently we will soon be the world’s largest user of small modular reactors*. I can’t wait. * nonsense Australian opposition talking point intended only to extend the life of fossil fuels in this country. https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-plan-to-nuke-australias-renewable-energy-transition-explained-in-full/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/duttons-plan-to-nuke-australias-...
    - DavidPiper 2y ago
      I'm not at all across the Nuclear Energy political discourse, though I understand it's a uh... hot topic here. The article you linked is about what I would expect from both sides. Theoretically I'm not against nuclear power. It's miles better than coal and oil, and Reactor design and safety has come a long way. France is a great example of a country who has made it work. However. It kind of seems unnecessary at this point. Solar and wind are cheaper, and already have industries in hockey-stick growth - including Lithium which Australia is also getting better at (locally and with Australian-owned companies abroad). Australia's key strength has always[1] been digging stuff out of the ground, and we still get to do that in a renewable future. Solar and wind also don't have black swan risks like nuclear - regardless of how much safer its become - and they're distributed, with fault tolerance / buffers built in by batteries. I assume the Libs' nuclear plan does not include building a ton of batteries to address those issues. I feel like we've just leapfrogged Nuclear as a useful solution, similar to the way many developing countries will be able to leapfrog entire industrial revolutions once clean energy is ubiquitous. Investing in nucalear at this point would literally be going backwards. [1] "Dale dug a hole"
      - defrost 2y ago
        > I'm not at all across the Nuclear Energy political discourse ... The article you linked is about what I would expect from both sides. If you only read (or skim) one technical report on Australia's energy needs and potential solutions: GenCost: cost of building Australia’s future electricity needs Each year, CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) collaborate with industry stakeholders to update GenCost. This leading economic report estimates the cost of building new electricity generation, storage, and hydrogen production in Australia out to 2050. Large-scale nuclear technology costs included for the first time. Renewables remain the lowest cost new build electricity technology. https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/GenCost https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Gen... It's not policy, it's relatively neutral CSIRO advice. Six page summary: https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Final_Executive-summary.pdf https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Fi... Nuclear came out as not available for quite some time (in Australia) and even then still the most expensive overall which caused the report to slammed as a product of anti nuclear lefty scientists by the Liberal | Murdoch crowd. (For a year prior to release it was hailed as the report that would prove doing nothing until off the shelf nuclear was a thing was the one true way).
      - doctor_eval 2y ago
        I don’t have strict view on nuclear but the link I posted goes into detail about why the current proposals are nonsense. There is zero chance that the technology being mooted will be available in the given timeline. The purpose of nuclear power in the current Australian debate is purely to stall renewables in favour of fossil fuel. That’s it. Presumably there’s a money trail leading to certain hyper-wealthy, vocal Australians.
      - energy123 2y ago
        The problem with the Australian Coalition's nuclear plan is it isn't a nuclear plan. It's a coal plan disguised as a nuclear plan. They're a party that's bought and paid for by coal interests who were in power recently for a decade and did nothing to kickstart nuclear. They got voted out partly due to inaction on climate change so they realised they need to propose something. Their half-hearted proposal will deliver less than 15% of the grid to nuclear by 2040, while stopping renewables, and being more expensive. Beyond the political, here's some more technical reasons why Australia shouldn't pursue it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40747810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40747810
anakaine 2y ago
We are still seeing the effects of negative sentiment campaigns even today through industry lobbyists and social media campaigns. There is an unusually large number of people and opinions aligned against renewable claiming that they are unreliable, cannot produce, are environmentally worse than their peers, etc. None of which are factually true aside from issues on cloudy windless days. Suppression is probably the wrong term, but it's naive to believe that there isnt a counter campaign against their uptake being funded by various pure play fossil fuel providers. I used to work for a company who was one such organisation, we had several PhDs funded through industry bodies we ultimately funded directly and through subsidiaries who had sold their soul to produce material using their "doctor" titles to demonstrate that coal was good for the environment, that wind turbines killed birds in extraordinary numbers and sent people mad, and the solar was poisoning the environment because of a lack of recycling capability. All largely false claims and often based on 30-40 year old early availability chemistry which was no longer in use. It was absolutely disgusting behaviour.
- roenxi 2y ago
  This seems to be overlooking the largest factor, which is that "renewables are cheaper!" has been a claim in the discourse for something like 20+ years and was a lie for most of that time. It is taking people a while to come around to the idea that this time the claim is serious. There are obvious failures from pushing renewables - Germany springing to mind, or any number of solar subsidies that proved uneconomic - and it was completely reasonable to wait for some demonstrated successes.
  - anakaine 2y ago
    This is a great example of how point data has been used to reinforce that negative sentiment, and how we need to readdress that sentiment given that over the past decade to 15 years the benefit has swung strongly in favour of renewables as a way to bolster the grid and improve energy security. The rejections ignored the incoming economy of scale and ramping of manufacturing, instead focusing on an immediate cost comparisson instead of a reformed market and lifetime project benefit cost scale. When you plan out the lifetime finances for a fossil fuel project, you use the latter. The arguments were perverted to ignore benefits in order to ensure current fossil fuel projects were able to remain generating a profit for as long as possible, minimising their debt and heading towards profitability. As stated, I've been behind that curtain first hand, and my engineering background is in planning out the lifetime of a resource and how to best exploit it. But let's look at some numbers Australia, 2023:, renewable 1/4 the cost of nuclear: https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/husic/media-releases/gencost-confirms-renewables-remain-cheapest-form-energy-cost-nuclear-reactors-skyrocket https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/husic/media-r... IRENA, 2022: "For the last 13 to 15 years, renewable power generation costs from solar and wind power have been falling. Between 2010 and 2022, solar and wind power became cost-competitive with fossil fuels even without financial support. The global weighted average cost of electricity from solar PV fell by 89 per cent to USD 0.049/kWh, almost one-third less than the cheapest fossil fuel globally. For onshore wind the fall was 69 per cent to USD 0.033/kWh in 2022, slightly less than half that of the cheapest fossil fuel-fired option in 2022." Germany, suffered from early mover issues in ~2015 combined with poor winter planning, however is now reaping the benefits of cheaper generation cost to offset gas supply shortages for baseload due to European supply restrictions, 2021: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2021/levelized-cost-of-electricity-renewables-clearly-superior-to-conventional-power-plants-due-to-rising-co2-prices.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/... Even the UK prime minister Boris Johnson, a conservative pundit, went on record as stating that renewables were the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to shore up the energy grid and remove dependence upon Russian oil and gas. This is a nice nod to the fact that the UK has been bulk importing Scottish renewable energy to ward against the massive price increases caused in Europe by the gas supply restriction: http://scotsman.com/news/environment/sustainable-scotland-without-energy-storage-the-uk-will-miss-net-zero-targets-and-continue-to-rely-on-foreign-imports-for-power-developer-warns-3633 http://scotsman.com/news/environment/sustainable-scotland-wi... Failing any rational risk taking due to the above illustrations, it's also critical that we reduce our greenhouse emissions. Another topic that is hotly debated when it really is straight forward. Even if renewables were to cost more, the educated policy makers would still steer toward either making them cheaper or installing them if the difference was marginal simply to ensure long term stability, maximising distributed generation and attempting to minimise the effects of a changing climate.
tbrownaw 2y ago
The folks who hadn't invented good enough storage yet. If we didn't have that, we'd still need other sources for night and winter and bad weather.
kumarvvr 2y ago
Fossil fuel industry, indirectly, by taking subsidies. This masked the true cost of fuels from public.
sunflowerfly 2y ago
Here in rural America, farmers putting signs in their fields stating “stop solar”, and “stop wind energy” are common. What is the source of the propaganda convincing them to do this?

richie-guix 2y ago

[flagged]

datahack 2y ago
I just want you to know that kind of uncalled for unkind behavior doesn’t have a place here on HN. Please do better in future. This isn’t Reddit.
- richie-guix 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - slater 2y ago
    "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - richie-guix 2y ago
      [flagged]