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Tangent but: this is also why reducing greenhouse gas emissions is hard. As long as fossil fuels remain one of the cheapest easiest to scale ways to make power

• jagraff 5mo ago
  Agreed - the good news is, in many circumstances renewable energy is cheaper for new energy capacity. As long as regulations move in the right direction, we are likely to see the global energy mix move towards renewable sources over time
  • don_esteban 5mo ago
    Not only is the renewable energy cheaper, it also raises energy independence, which turns out to be quite relevant in today's world. Furthermore, it also reduces the drain on the (often very fragile, for thirld world countries) foreign reserves, especially relevant when the oil prices fluctuate wildly. If your solar panels are old and you don't have money to replace them, you get slightly less electricity. If you are out of gasoline/diesel and you have no money to buy it, you have a big, big, problem.
    • cman1444 5mo ago
      This is exactly why I don't think it's a huge risk to be reliant on China for solar panels. If relations between your country and China go bad, it can't be that much of an emergency when they stop exporting them to you. All the panels you already bought still work! Unless there is some hidden cybersecurity risk of them shutting off panels remotely?
      • Koffiepoeder 5mo ago
        I would be more concerned for remotely triggered inverter spikes tbh. These could sabotage the whole grid if I'm not mistaken.
      • fragmede 5mo ago
        Yes, exactly. The panel's control system is connected to the Internet and there's an app that an attacker could take advantage of to interfere with critical infrastructure at an inopportune time.
        • don_esteban 5mo ago
          If you are doing grid-scale installation, surely you would want your own control system (perhaps also on your own network, separated from the general internet), precisely in order to protect the grid.
          • tmp10423288442 5mo ago
            There’s always the issue that it might be hard to find competent people that can implement a control network isolated from the internet if it has an internet connection by default.
          • bluGill 5mo ago
            This is no different - either way you are buying a system that includes controls. While separating this from the internet sounds great, in practice internet control is too useful to run without. Maybe you put in a few firewall rules to protect things, but these often are lose enough that a hacker and bypass them (by looking like a legitimate access - since the people who need to access this will want to work from their cell phone)
      • chii 5mo ago
        > Unless there is some hidden cybersecurity risk of them shutting off panels remotely? The weakest link won't be the panels themselves, but the grid infrastructure, or telephony infrastructure. Unless somehow the chinese were able to embed a radiowave activated kill-switch or something. Highly doubt it!
  • Muromec 5mo ago
    it doesn't have to be cheaper to be a problem, as long as somebody still makes money on it and corruption still exists. And corruption is one of those annoying problems that dont go away easy
    • jagraff 5mo ago
      I think right now, the vast majority of oil use is not because of corrupt officials using oil energy despite the fact that cheaper energy sources are available. Maybe that problem will eventually be a sticking point in removing all carbon-emitting energy sources, but right now the barrier is mostly production capacity and the scale of capital investment required to roll out renewables at scale. But if (as seems to be the case now) rolling out renewables is more profitable than rolling out additional fossil fuel use, the capital should become increasingly available. That's why I'm optimistic, even though of course there are a lot of challenges ahead in terms of creating a truly sustainable future.
  • IAmBroom 5mo ago
    When speaking about global energy mixes, or even nationwide energy mixes, regulations are just remixing the cost into separate buckets. Subsidizing oil for your citizens costs your country. Trump did manage to make it more expensive for most of the world, but reversing that chaos is much, much harder.
• debo_ 5mo ago
  There are economic mechanisms for this (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Me...) but broadly, yes, it is difficult.
• skybrian 5mo ago
  Isn’t solar already cheaper?
• brightball 5mo ago
  > As long as fossil fuels remain one of the cheapest easiest to scale ways to make power, there’s a similar incentive to cheat. If everyone else cuts emissions and you don’t, your margins are higher and you can undercut them. Global reductions require an all-cooperate scenario. IMO economics always wins. You're never going to see an all-cooperate scenario. You will see an all-compete scenario, so constantly reducing costs for alternatives is key but you also have to find a way to ensure that the producers can win economically too. This is the conundrum. If solar panels get cheap enough to create high demand, then that demand has to carry through the process of manufacturing, installing and maintenance. Every time I read that solar has gotten even cheaper, I start calling for quotes to install them at my house and the prices are borderline obscene. Same for geothermal last time I needed to update my HVAC. I want solar and geothermal to work but the economics are a challenge.
  • SequoiaHope 5mo ago
    Keep in mind if you are in the US, your prices have been artificially raised by tariffs. 30% starting in 2018, then declining each year for a while to 15%. Those tariffs recently expired but when I searched I saw this article about new tariffs on certain countries solar as high as 123%. All this to say, you calling a local company and getting quotes captures your price but that’s not quite the same as the global price. https://esgnews.com/us-imposes-solar-tariffs-up-to-123-on-imports-from-india-indonesia-and-laos/ https://esgnews.com/us-imposes-solar-tariffs-up-to-123-on-im... EDIT: I was wrong - tariffs on eg Chinese made solar panels are more like 65% right now - there’s multiple tariffs. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/02/04/u-s-raises-solar-polysilicon-wafer-and-cell-tariffs-from-china-to-60/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/02/04/u-s-raises-solar-poly... Point being the US government is making them expensive for US consumers but that’s not true for global markets where they want to have energy independence. Solar is in fact very cheap these days.
    • phil21 5mo ago
      Tariffs have little to do with install costs in the US. They were horrible before Trump, and aren't much worse today. The equipment is nearly free compared to the labor to install it. At least the last time I checked. I could do my own DIY system for about 1/4th the cost of one "professionally" installed - and I use the scare quotes for good reason. Most of the installation companies for residential solar exist to sell financing, the solar bit is just an unfortunate tertiary (behind grifting on the green energy credits/tax rebates) concern for most of them. Panels costing an extra 65% is a rounding error for me. I'd need a whole lot more real estate to put them on for it to become a significant fraction of the total system cost. And that might even STILL be okay if the quality of engineering and workmanship was decent and available. I'd pay the going rate tomorrow if I could find a highly competent electrician/company to do the over-engineered setup I want today. I'm not interested in saving money - I could care less if it ever pencils out. I'm interested in having a system that can survive a lengthy grid outage situation that is fully redundant and properly engineered to industrial level standards. This is effectively impossible in the US, but friends in other areas of the world have had similar setups installed for years.
• jmyeet 5mo ago
  Renewables (particularly solar) already are cheaper [1]. It's political will not economics that keeps us addicted to fossil fuels. Nobody gets rich from solar panels. You build them. They produce power. Oil wells like any mine are huge wealth concentrators. That's the real problem. If anything, a bunch of countries (particularly those who are net oil importers) are re-evaluting their energy dependence given that the compact that the US will guarantee maritime transport has essentially been broken. [1]: https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020 https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el...
• breakyerself 5mo ago
  So little political will is needed at this point as the economics now favor renewables. Unfortunately most of the political will seems to be leaning towards protecting the more expensive fossil fuel sources of energy.
  • bluGill 5mo ago
    Because the money for politics is in oil. Renewables are investing any dollar they have into building more. Oil has a lot of money that is best invested in politics thus creating the political will. Don't worry too much, the return on investment of renewables is much better than politics. Politics can put a few brakes on, but that only slows things a little, it won't stop it. (and politics is not set - there are plenty of forces opposing oil - they are not in power now but they are still powerful and are likely to gain power again as the tides switch)
• torginus 5mo ago
  > Developing nations have the strongest incentive to cheat since they need those margins to catch up This isn't really how it works, since greenhouse gas output is pretty much corellated to income level, and even that's an understatement, since people in rich countries buy stuff made in poor countries, and manufacturing causes emissions. The real problem is carbon credits - rich countries can both pollute, and absolve themselves of moral responsibility by buying carbon credits - and said carbon credits are fungible, so countries' compete for the lowest selling price. So what ends up happening is poor countries sell carbon credits by offering programs and promises, but can't/won't bear the cost, as that would mean they'd have to raise credit prices, and buyers would go elsewhere. It's a system designed to encourage cheating while absolving moral responsibility.
  • bluGill 5mo ago
    The difference is rich nations are not cheating, they are setting the rules which are what they plan to do anyway. (though this is a form of cheating)