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See a wider perspective on how energy sources shape geopolitics: "The pivot" by Charlie Stross https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45621074 https://news.ycombi

by stared 7mo ago

See a wider perspective on how energy sources shape geopolitics: "The pivot" by Charlie Stross https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45621074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45621074. And yes, solar energy is not only greener (less CO2, less PM2.5), but also frees us from dependency on other countries. The future can be less centralized. Some countries (Russia included) will lose their bargaining chip. Other countries (USA included) will lose the incentive to 'democratize' the Middle East.

sieabahlpark 7mo ago
[dead]
OneDonOne 7mo ago
And how will renewables like solar and wind wirk with Class 8 trucks, shipping, aviation or process heat or as feedstock? How have they worked in Germany, which has shut down her nuclear plants and Russian hydrocarbons? Please - tell us.
- stared 7mo ago
  > Please - tell us. No need of sarcasm here. Or going the route of a false dichotomy. Again, not all dependencies can be eliminated. But it is better to have less dependencies. Closing nuclear plants in Germany was a disaster, and here we agree.
  - OneDonOne 7mo ago
    One of those dependencies w.r.t large solar panel buildouts, will be charcoal. [0] And lots of it. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...
    - triceratops 7mo ago
      Solar panels are recyclable. Once you have enough for your needs you can stop burning charcoal. You can never stop burning oil if all you use is oil. Also I wasn't aware you could extract oil, gas, and coal with no environmental impact. I must have just dreamed the words Deepwater Horizon.
- Valgrim 7mo ago
  I'm gonna be the annoying guy who points out the obvious thats being repeated again and again for the last 50 years... For transport, trains! Trains of different sizes, shapes and designs, solve most of the transport issues. The fact that western countries are behind on this doesnt mean it's too late to start. For heat, better insulation and heat pumps do wonders! For feedstock maybe feeding animals is simply bot the way we should move forward. And I say all this as a person who drives a gas car 70 miles every day, lives in an old house with bad insulation and eat meat several times a week
  - OneDonOne 7mo ago
    By feedstock, I mean the hydrocarbons that are required for the bulk chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, rubbers, detergents, pharmaceuticals etc. that we take for granted. And you still need trucks for last mile haulage.
    - AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
      Class 8 trucks are solved. Volvo, Freightliner and Tesla all make electric semis. They're not a large percentage of the installed base yet but there is nothing that needs to be invented, only adopted, and the latter will pick up as the battery costs continue to decline. Chemical feedstocks are only a small percentage of the petroleum market. The large majority is fuel. If you stop burning it there is plenty of supply and you're not worried about whether you can get any from Iran.
      - OneDonOne 7mo ago
        Not only are electric trucks are unprofitable, it means you switch your dependency from Middle-Eastern fossil fuels to Chinese rare earths. At least we can make biofuels from sugarcane
        TheTxT 7mo ago
        You don’t burn your batteries though. You build them once and then use them for 20 years. They will just keep working when the next war erupts on the other side of the planet.
- gpm 7mo ago
  > Class 8 trucks Half of the "heavy duty vehicles" (which I believe is roughly similar to the classification you are using) sold in China in December were electric. Between rapidly improving batteries and maturing technology for swapping batteries as a refuelling strategy electrification of trucks is the obvious and inevitable future. They are simply cheaper to operate.
  - OneDonOne 7mo ago
    Good for the Chinese. The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks. And there is still the matter of fertilizer, concrete, bulk chemicals etc. And solar panels. There is a very good reason why solar psnel factories (like JinkoSolar run off coal or hydro and not solar power.
    - jemmyw 7mo ago
      > The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks. We can afford what we can do. We don't need to do what we can afford. If we wanted to build and deploy electric trucks enmasse like China then we could do it, regardless of upfront capital.
      - coffeebeqn 7mo ago
        Right the US lacks capital for tech investment..
        wookmaster 7mo ago
        not sure lacks is the correct word...
    - rickydroll 7mo ago
      That's one of the wonderful things about automotive infrastructure. You can make gradual incremental changes and slowly improve the entire system. It may not be fast enough or cheap enough, but you can still make it happen.
    - 7mo ago
- triceratops 7mo ago
  If electricity is cheap enough you can synthesize hydrocarbons. For aviation, and shipping, and even trucking if EVs and trains can't do it.
remarkEon 7mo ago
>but also frees us from dependency on other countries It does not. It moves the dependency to the manufacturing source of the panels. That is China. No thanks. Can we please just build more reactors? The insistence on solar is becoming a cargo cult (thanks, Elon Musk).
- AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
  China can't stop you from using solar panels you've already installed and you could manufacture new ones somewhere else. Solar actually makes a lot of sense for a significant fraction of the grid. It's specifically excellent for electrifying transportation, because most cars are stationary at an office park during the majority of sunlight hours. Install chargers there and you solve the problem of people in apartments not having them at home and you don't have to worry about the intermittency because you're literally using it to charge batteries. Solar is cheaper at the cost of intermittency, so for the things where intermittency doesn't really matter it makes obvious sense. When it sucks is when you need reliable power in winter at night. Which is what nuclear is good at. But then... you can use both, each one for the thing it's better at.
- triceratops 7mo ago
  This is gas brain thinking. Solar panels are not gas. You don't burn them to make energy. There is no dependency on solar panel manufacturers. Once you install a panel it's going to make electricity for the next 25 years. At least. After that you can recycle it and use it another 25 years. Reactors on the other hand require fuel that is consumed. Unless you can mine it yourself, you're just trading an oil dependency for a uranium dependency.
  - asdff 7mo ago
    There is a dependency considering these are evidently valid targets for missiles
    - triceratops 7mo ago
      I don't know what you're referring to. Do you mind rephrasing?

by stared 7mo ago

sieabahlpark 7mo ago

[dead]

OneDonOne 7mo ago

And how will renewables like solar and wind wirk with Class 8 trucks, shipping, aviation or process heat or as feedstock? How have they worked in Germany, which has shut down her nuclear plants and Russian hydrocarbons? Please - tell us.

stared 7mo ago
> Please - tell us. No need of sarcasm here. Or going the route of a false dichotomy. Again, not all dependencies can be eliminated. But it is better to have less dependencies. Closing nuclear plants in Germany was a disaster, and here we agree.
- OneDonOne 7mo ago
  One of those dependencies w.r.t large solar panel buildouts, will be charcoal. [0] And lots of it. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...
  - triceratops 7mo ago
    Solar panels are recyclable. Once you have enough for your needs you can stop burning charcoal. You can never stop burning oil if all you use is oil. Also I wasn't aware you could extract oil, gas, and coal with no environmental impact. I must have just dreamed the words Deepwater Horizon.
Valgrim 7mo ago
I'm gonna be the annoying guy who points out the obvious thats being repeated again and again for the last 50 years... For transport, trains! Trains of different sizes, shapes and designs, solve most of the transport issues. The fact that western countries are behind on this doesnt mean it's too late to start. For heat, better insulation and heat pumps do wonders! For feedstock maybe feeding animals is simply bot the way we should move forward. And I say all this as a person who drives a gas car 70 miles every day, lives in an old house with bad insulation and eat meat several times a week
- OneDonOne 7mo ago
  By feedstock, I mean the hydrocarbons that are required for the bulk chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, rubbers, detergents, pharmaceuticals etc. that we take for granted. And you still need trucks for last mile haulage.
  - AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
    Class 8 trucks are solved. Volvo, Freightliner and Tesla all make electric semis. They're not a large percentage of the installed base yet but there is nothing that needs to be invented, only adopted, and the latter will pick up as the battery costs continue to decline. Chemical feedstocks are only a small percentage of the petroleum market. The large majority is fuel. If you stop burning it there is plenty of supply and you're not worried about whether you can get any from Iran.
    - OneDonOne 7mo ago
      Not only are electric trucks are unprofitable, it means you switch your dependency from Middle-Eastern fossil fuels to Chinese rare earths. At least we can make biofuels from sugarcane
      - TheTxT 7mo ago
        You don’t burn your batteries though. You build them once and then use them for 20 years. They will just keep working when the next war erupts on the other side of the planet.
gpm 7mo ago
> Class 8 trucks Half of the "heavy duty vehicles" (which I believe is roughly similar to the classification you are using) sold in China in December were electric. Between rapidly improving batteries and maturing technology for swapping batteries as a refuelling strategy electrification of trucks is the obvious and inevitable future. They are simply cheaper to operate.
- OneDonOne 7mo ago
  Good for the Chinese. The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks. And there is still the matter of fertilizer, concrete, bulk chemicals etc. And solar panels. There is a very good reason why solar psnel factories (like JinkoSolar run off coal or hydro and not solar power.
  - jemmyw 7mo ago
    > The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks. We can afford what we can do. We don't need to do what we can afford. If we wanted to build and deploy electric trucks enmasse like China then we could do it, regardless of upfront capital.
    - coffeebeqn 7mo ago
      Right the US lacks capital for tech investment..
      - wookmaster 7mo ago
        not sure lacks is the correct word...
  - rickydroll 7mo ago
    That's one of the wonderful things about automotive infrastructure. You can make gradual incremental changes and slowly improve the entire system. It may not be fast enough or cheap enough, but you can still make it happen.
  - 7mo ago
triceratops 7mo ago
If electricity is cheap enough you can synthesize hydrocarbons. For aviation, and shipping, and even trucking if EVs and trains can't do it.

remarkEon 7mo ago

>but also frees us from dependency on other countries It does not. It moves the dependency to the manufacturing source of the panels. That is China. No thanks. Can we please just build more reactors? The insistence on solar is becoming a cargo cult (thanks, Elon Musk).

AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
China can't stop you from using solar panels you've already installed and you could manufacture new ones somewhere else. Solar actually makes a lot of sense for a significant fraction of the grid. It's specifically excellent for electrifying transportation, because most cars are stationary at an office park during the majority of sunlight hours. Install chargers there and you solve the problem of people in apartments not having them at home and you don't have to worry about the intermittency because you're literally using it to charge batteries. Solar is cheaper at the cost of intermittency, so for the things where intermittency doesn't really matter it makes obvious sense. When it sucks is when you need reliable power in winter at night. Which is what nuclear is good at. But then... you can use both, each one for the thing it's better at.
triceratops 7mo ago
This is gas brain thinking. Solar panels are not gas. You don't burn them to make energy. There is no dependency on solar panel manufacturers. Once you install a panel it's going to make electricity for the next 25 years. At least. After that you can recycle it and use it another 25 years. Reactors on the other hand require fuel that is consumed. Unless you can mine it yourself, you're just trading an oil dependency for a uranium dependency.
- asdff 7mo ago
  There is a dependency considering these are evidently valid targets for missiles
  - triceratops 7mo ago
    I don't know what you're referring to. Do you mind rephrasing?