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Certainly not the only country. Iceland is even more extreme in this regard and unlike Finland it is powered by 100% renewables, hydro and geothermal energy. In

by hulium 1y ago

Certainly not the only country. Iceland is even more extreme in this regard and unlike Finland it is powered by 100% renewables, hydro and geothermal energy. In Finland the only good renewable alternative is wood/biomass.

bryanlarsen 1y ago
Seems reasonable. I'll have to dig up my source to double check. Maybe they just didn't have Iceland data in their set? It's certainly a surprising result to see other non-sunny places like the UK, Germany, Norway & Sweden have solar as their cheapest energy source.
- kragen 1y ago
  It's hard to get really solid estimates for solar costs because they've been dropping so precipitously, and because they depend on so many ancillary factors: wiring, inspections, permitting, power electronics, storage, and so on. Getting solid estimates for solar return on investment is even harder, because it depends on the future price of energy.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Yes, it's certainly possible that Iceland is better for solar than Finland not because of its sunlight, but because of those myriad extra factors.
    - ponector 1y ago
      I'm sure there is no sense in solar energy in Iceland due to strong winds there as well as geothermal energy. It's sad they are building gas-powered data centers in US instead of powered by renewables in Iceland.
      - kragen 1y ago
        Windmills can be surprisingly expensive. https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf#page=150 https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost... is not up-to-date, but I think the windmill prices in it have changed a lot less than the solar prices; the 200 MW onshore project they price out there comes to US$1265/kW (US$1.27/W), of which something like 61% is the windmills themselves. Low-cost photovoltaic solar modules currently cost €0.055/W (US$0.065/W), lower by more than an order of magnitude https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preisindex/ https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis.... So, at equal cost, the alternative to a megawatt of windmills may not be a megawatt of solar panels, but 10 megawatts of solar panels. And that can compensate for their lower capacity factor. I don't think people are building gas-powered data centers in the US. There's a data center crunch in the US because people aren't building them because they can't get the power because of the US's anti-renewable-energy policies.
        ponector 1y ago
        Difference is massive, but price of land should be also accounted for. Solar uses 5 times more land per MW. The solution is to develop everything, all kinds of renewables.
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
        You can buy land in the desert for under $1000 an acre. There are places you can buy farmland for under $10000 an acre.
        kragen 1y ago
        Even the EIA-commissioned study I linked doesn't include that, but it is a potentially significant cost. If we take the median price of US$4702 per Texas "acre" from https://texasfarmcredit.com/resources/texas-land-pricing-guide/ https://texasfarmcredit.com/resources/texas-land-pricing-gui... it works out to US$1.16/m². At 30° latitude your panels provide about 0.86 square meters of panel per square meter of land, or more like 0.3 with trackers, so the land price is on the order of US$3/m². A square meter is nominally a kilowatt of sunlight, so that's US$0.003/W of sunlight, but mainstream panels are usually only around 21% efficient, so it's more like US$0.015/Wp. Historically this has been insignificant but may no longer be with mainstream panels costing only US$0.10/Wp. Desert land, lakes, and harbors are cheaper, so we should expect to see more panels there instead of on potentially arable land.
    - hulium 1y ago
      I think Finland just has a large enough extent from south to north that solar might be starting to become viable in the south but not in the north. While Iceland already produces more electricity per capita than any other country, using only hydro and geothermal, so solar is pretty much non-existent. Comparison of solar share: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-share-energy?tab=line&country=ISL~FIN~NOR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-share-energy?tab=li... Solar potential: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland#/media/File:EU-Glob_opta_presentation.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland#/media/File:...
CRConrad 1y ago
Actually, calling geothermal energy "renewable" is a bit of a misnomer, isn't it? At least if the heat energy in the Earth's crust, which is what "geothermal energy" harvests, comes from the inside. The Earth's core may not be cooling down very fast, but we know for sure it's not getting any warmer (not before the Sun in its death throes swells up into a red giant and swallows the inner planets, anyway). Yeah, I know, super-nitpicky — but, hey, it's the Best Kind Of Correct™. (Unless the crust is actually heated more by the Sun than from below, but I doubt that.)
- kragen 1y ago
  Most geothermal energy comes from the decay of radioactive elements in the Earth's crust, although heat from Earth's formation is a non-negligible fraction of it. If you check out the web site of Iceland's geothermal energy agency, I believe they do have a calculation there of the sustainable power level that could be extracted (without cooling down the crust), but I don't remember if they're currently above or below it. If I recall correctly, however, the fossil heat trapped in the crust under Iceland is several billion years of the sustainable extraction rate. And, on the third hand, even if you only extract energy at the rate that radioactive decay produces it, in only a few tens of billions of years, most of the radioisotopes will have decayed away if you don't replenish them. You are correct that the crust is heated more from below than by the Sun. That's why the bottom of the crust, where it contacts the mantle, is hotter than the surface.

by hulium 1y ago

bryanlarsen 1y ago

Seems reasonable. I'll have to dig up my source to double check. Maybe they just didn't have Iceland data in their set? It's certainly a surprising result to see other non-sunny places like the UK, Germany, Norway & Sweden have solar as their cheapest energy source.

kragen 1y ago
It's hard to get really solid estimates for solar costs because they've been dropping so precipitously, and because they depend on so many ancillary factors: wiring, inspections, permitting, power electronics, storage, and so on. Getting solid estimates for solar return on investment is even harder, because it depends on the future price of energy.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Yes, it's certainly possible that Iceland is better for solar than Finland not because of its sunlight, but because of those myriad extra factors.
  - ponector 1y ago
    I'm sure there is no sense in solar energy in Iceland due to strong winds there as well as geothermal energy. It's sad they are building gas-powered data centers in US instead of powered by renewables in Iceland.
    - kragen 1y ago
      Windmills can be surprisingly expensive. https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capital_cost_AEO2020.pdf#page=150 https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost... is not up-to-date, but I think the windmill prices in it have changed a lot less than the solar prices; the 200 MW onshore project they price out there comes to US$1265/kW (US$1.27/W), of which something like 61% is the windmills themselves. Low-cost photovoltaic solar modules currently cost €0.055/W (US$0.065/W), lower by more than an order of magnitude https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preisindex/ https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis.... So, at equal cost, the alternative to a megawatt of windmills may not be a megawatt of solar panels, but 10 megawatts of solar panels. And that can compensate for their lower capacity factor. I don't think people are building gas-powered data centers in the US. There's a data center crunch in the US because people aren't building them because they can't get the power because of the US's anti-renewable-energy policies.
      - ponector 1y ago
        Difference is massive, but price of land should be also accounted for. Solar uses 5 times more land per MW. The solution is to develop everything, all kinds of renewables.
        bryanlarsen 1y ago
        You can buy land in the desert for under $1000 an acre. There are places you can buy farmland for under $10000 an acre.
        kragen 1y ago
        Even the EIA-commissioned study I linked doesn't include that, but it is a potentially significant cost. If we take the median price of US$4702 per Texas "acre" from https://texasfarmcredit.com/resources/texas-land-pricing-guide/ https://texasfarmcredit.com/resources/texas-land-pricing-gui... it works out to US$1.16/m². At 30° latitude your panels provide about 0.86 square meters of panel per square meter of land, or more like 0.3 with trackers, so the land price is on the order of US$3/m². A square meter is nominally a kilowatt of sunlight, so that's US$0.003/W of sunlight, but mainstream panels are usually only around 21% efficient, so it's more like US$0.015/Wp. Historically this has been insignificant but may no longer be with mainstream panels costing only US$0.10/Wp. Desert land, lakes, and harbors are cheaper, so we should expect to see more panels there instead of on potentially arable land.
  - hulium 1y ago
    I think Finland just has a large enough extent from south to north that solar might be starting to become viable in the south but not in the north. While Iceland already produces more electricity per capita than any other country, using only hydro and geothermal, so solar is pretty much non-existent. Comparison of solar share: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-share-energy?tab=line&country=ISL~FIN~NOR https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-share-energy?tab=li... Solar potential: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland#/media/File:EU-Glob_opta_presentation.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland#/media/File:...

CRConrad 1y ago

Actually, calling geothermal energy "renewable" is a bit of a misnomer, isn't it? At least if the heat energy in the Earth's crust, which is what "geothermal energy" harvests, comes from the inside. The Earth's core may not be cooling down very fast, but we know for sure it's not getting any warmer (not before the Sun in its death throes swells up into a red giant and swallows the inner planets, anyway). Yeah, I know, super-nitpicky — but, hey, it's the Best Kind Of Correct™. (Unless the crust is actually heated more by the Sun than from below, but I doubt that.)

kragen 1y ago
Most geothermal energy comes from the decay of radioactive elements in the Earth's crust, although heat from Earth's formation is a non-negligible fraction of it. If you check out the web site of Iceland's geothermal energy agency, I believe they do have a calculation there of the sustainable power level that could be extracted (without cooling down the crust), but I don't remember if they're currently above or below it. If I recall correctly, however, the fossil heat trapped in the crust under Iceland is several billion years of the sustainable extraction rate. And, on the third hand, even if you only extract energy at the rate that radioactive decay produces it, in only a few tens of billions of years, most of the radioisotopes will have decayed away if you don't replenish them. You are correct that the crust is heated more from below than by the Sun. That's why the bottom of the crust, where it contacts the mantle, is hotter than the surface.