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Investors pile into clean energy as Iran war drives push for energy security
- kakaz 6mo ago[dead]
- grunder_advice 6mo agoI've held green tech stocks in the past but never made a dime out of them. There was a pattern to them. First there'd be demand, then the factories in China will turn on and suddenly there's a glut so the price goes back down. Then the factories would shut off again and the cycle repeats. I wonder if that's still happening.
- adjejmxbdjdn 6mo agoGreen stocks in the west will not be successful because of green politics in the West. Green tech is a fledgling industry trying to challenge a dominant, well established one. Any such industry needs basic government support, but at the very least, predictable government regulation. Unfortunately not only have we not seen support, we’ve seen opposition from the government, and the stability has been laughable. Meanwhile that’s exactly what the Chinese government is providing which means the entire industry (outside of a now small section of wind power in Europe, which preceded green tech becoming political football) is Chinese, so you and I and pretty much everyone outside China has been cut off from benefitting from it as an investment and can only benefit from it as consumers. There is hope that the Europeans might finally get their act together here, but hoping the Europeans may get their act together in investment, industrial and financial policy has so far been a fool’s game. There’s little to no hope for America getting its act together for at least a few years in the green tech supply chain, although the actual green tech consumption seems to be growing even with the political headwinds.
- xiphias2 6mo agoAI is getting a multitrillion valuation business, and depends on energy in US a lot, so I can imagine that all kind of energy lobby will get very strong. Of course I believe oil lobby doesn't want competition, so it will be a rich guys' fight.
- cybercatgurrl 6mo agoin the end green power will win because energy efficiency means greater profits and that’s what capitalism demand. the question of how long it will take though is anyone’s guess
- FridayoLeary 6mo agoYou are projecting a lot. Europe is obsessed with green energy. As soon as we in the UK start seeing any tangible benefits of green energy i.e, lower prices which is the main thing anyone who isn't an upper middle class liberal cares about then i'll be on here singing it's praises. Green energy is challenging because it has many times less density then every other form out there, among other reasons.
- dgellow 6mo ago> Europe is obsessed with green energy I wish that was true…
- matty22 6mo agoI'm not confident that any of us will ever see lower prices due to green energy. Why would the power company who currently makes $XX billions of dollars per year ever provide that same service for $(XX-YY) billions of dollars per year when they could pocket the cost savings themselves and pump up their stock value? Aside from privately owned solar/wind/battery on your own home, there's no evidence that I've seen anyway that indicates when utilities move to more green energy generation that those savings get passed on to customers. Perhaps, there are examples out there somewhere.
- WJW 6mo agoInterestingly, oil investors experience this boom-and-bust cycle too: every time oil prices spike, a bunch of extra companies flood into the market to drill some wells or weld pipelines or build tankers or whatever. All the extra supply crashes the price and most of the new companies go bankrupt or get consolidated into the big energy firms. This slowly brings spare capacity back down, so the next time there's a disruption the cycle kicks off for its next round.
- smallerize 6mo agoThat used to be true, but things have really settled down. Notice the lack of rushing to start more fracking or refining projects during this crisis.
- margalabargala 6mo agoI don't know that I would hear about it. How would I know?
- balderdash 6mo agoThis is probably the most relevant metric: https://rigcount.bakerhughes.com/ https://rigcount.bakerhughes.com/ Not seeing a bunch more rigs operating means there new drilling isn’t ramping up.
- bigthymer 6mo agoTypical commodity cycle...most commodities work like this
- giantg2 6mo agoAre there any renewable energy companies manufacturing in the US? Seems like all are downstream of that, just providing installation and management. Actual energy security should include some meaningful domestic production.
- micromacrofoot 6mo agonot at a meaningful scale, and the environment for this under the current administration is increasingly hostile so it won't be for years
- firebot 6mo agoT1 Energy in Texas is producing solar panels and systems including batteries at gigawatt(about 3 currently, but they're expanding) scales. Illuminate USA in Ohio claims to be going even bigger than T1. Over 5 GW/year (10 million panels). But they just seem to manufacture panels and not batteries. Some others include: Tesla, Qcells, Mission Solar, First Solar, Ambri, Enphase, Ørsted, TotalEnergies, and Generac. Not all are fully vertically integrated and many still rely on global supply chains...
- deaux 6mo agoPanasonic has a big US battery plant.
- kilroy123 6mo agoThe biggest difference now is that the tech and scale are here now. The prices are dropping like a rock for grid storage, thanks to China. Sodium-ion battery production is being ramped up. I honestly think renewables will grow exponentially from now all fosil fuel is dead.
- uyzstvqs 6mo ago> thanks to China We just have to be careful there. My fellow Europeans here will remember what resulted out of depending on an adversary for energy, in our case Russian NG. We don't want another energy crisis as the result of geopolitical tensions. We shouldn't import foreign DRM, our critical infrastructure should not utilize foreign-hosted or proprietary IoT, and we should invest in local manufacturing utilizing automation.
- Weryj 6mo agoNot quite the same, a solar panel installed doesn’t disappear if China changes their stance.
- fragmede 6mo agoNot the panel itself, but the firmware of the solar panel charge controller and inverter that's connected to the Internet because there's an app to monitor the system. I wouldn't bet that there aren't remote kill switches deep inside that firmware.
- interstice 6mo agoThe panels and controllers are mostly interchangeable are they not?
- firebot 6mo agoThey've found some of those in the wild. They weren't that deep.
- mcswell 6mo agoDonald Trump: "Drill, baby, drill!" American oil companies: "It doesn't pay, oil prices are too low to make drilling worth while." Donald Trump: "War, baby, war!" (Oil prices go up) The rest of the world: "Renewables!" Five or ten years from now, when renewables have largely replaced oil, gas and coal in most of the world, the US will be the only major country still using fossil fuels. And the rest of the world will be better off; the US, not so much.
- gcanyon 6mo agoThis is exactly what I came to post. It's like Trump was designed in a lab to destroy the US :-(
- Dumblydorr 6mo agoHe was a hand grenade of identity and economic grievance thrown into the glassware shop of the federal government. He slashed, burned, grifted, and shot a missile into an elementary school. The worst president in history?
- Ylpertnodi 6mo agoVince may be.
- iknowSFR 6mo agoIt’s no coincidence that everything from energy sources to civil rights to military strategy to trade policy struggle to evolve from the same era the US became a super power, 1945-1955. Its downfall is its nostalgia for that period.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> evolve from the same era the US became a super power, 1945-1955. Its downfall is its nostalgia for that period Four out of our last five Presidents were born within 4 years of each other [1]. Three (Bush Jr., Clinton and Trump) were born in 1946. Good news: 2024 was probably the last election where Boomers’ vote share was above 25%. In 2028, a significant number of states, including California and Texas, will have fewer than 20% of votes cast by Boomers. (194 EVs in 2028 and, using 2020 Census numbers, a further 243 EVs in ‘32.) [1] https://www.loriferber.com/amp/research/presidential-facts-statistics/presidential-birthdates.html https://www.loriferber.com/amp/research/presidential-facts-s...
- PearlRiver 6mo agoThe North Sea has given us free fish, trade with all corners of the world and now it's one giant windmill farm.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago…did the fish run away?
- senectus1 6mo agomaybe the all died of windmill cancer
- soupspaces 6mo ago[dead]
- dgellow 6mo agoAre you saying there is no trade anymore via the North Sea because of windmills?
- hasbot 6mo ago[dead]
- throw3433 6mo agoFossil fuels are also funding terrorism around the world. Getting rid of it is good for peace too
- jfengel 6mo agoIt is remarkable the way fossil fuels often seem to be found in violent, barbarous places like Iran, Venezuela, and Texas.
- chii 6mo agoIt's because the peaceful places where they're also found don't make the news.
- cycomanic 6mo agoWe can thank the big oil and western governments for that. For years they have been working against stable democratic governments in these places, because it's easier to get cheap resources from corrupt governments than from stable democratic governments with functioning legal systems and limited corruption. It's something we can see all over the world, pretty much all resource rich countries in the world have been destabilised systematically.
- apexalpha 6mo agoThis is 'survivor' bias, I think. Or some other fallacy. Oil is found in a lot of regions but the non-violent ones were obviously exploited first. They are now just emptied out, like the North Sea in Europe.
- cybercatgurrl 6mo agowonder when they’re gonna remove the dictator of Texas. that would be a win for everyone, hoorah!
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoTerrorism and political disruption and chaos. e.g. they've cultivated / funded and basically created a formerly extremely fringe "Alberta separatism" movement and are actively trying to disassemble the Canadian state. Things have gotten to the point that they're willing to light fires of instability right in the heart of the "stable" heartland of North America. Formerly international capital benefited from stability. But the fossil fuel sector sees the writing on the wall and is trying to make as much hay while the sun shines as it can. They profit from the chaos, as we've seen from the last two months.
- xbmcuser 6mo ago[dead]
- latentframe 6mo agoSeems to be an energy security trade, when oil goes up and geopolitics heats dependence gets priced again quickly
- Aboutplants 6mo agoThere is a massive opportunity for the US in the next 5-10 years to take advantage of a Slow Adopter advantage by only now truly taking advantage of the technological and cost advances made in the past 5-10 years. Now that the public has heard the term “Trillions” whether it relates to defense spending or company valuations, that term is now somewhat more meaningless for grand scale ideas. Couple that with rising energy costs and you have a potential public appetite for a massive push for renewable and storage of all kinds.
- dgellow 6mo agoThe US president and administration are very vocally against it. And are responsible for the ongoing crisis, with no sign of change
- Throaway199999 6mo agoThe US president will be gone and the Republicans will have to replace him. I dont know if Vance is up to the task of being "The New Trump."
- amanaplanacanal 6mo agoProbably not. The man has no charisma. Don Jr seems like an idiot. Possibly Rubio, which would definitely be an upgrade from Trump. Or someone who isn't on anybody's radar yet. I suspect people are going to be pretty sick of Republicans after another two years of this idiocy.
- dgellow 6mo ago> Don Jr seems like an idiot I mean.. doesn’t seem to matter, right?
- general1465 6mo agoIt kind of does. Don Jr is just a professional son. The moment his father is gone, nobody will take him seriously.
- cabnm 6mo agoIt is very funny that Nord Stream had to be sabotaged while all the Nord Stream money was wasted (Russia had a weak army while the pipeline was operational). Now we are supposed to buy solar panels from China while the US is depicting China as the greatest threat, senate hearings demand usage of US bases in Asia without the approval of the host countries and the US started the Iran war to maintain a blockade to control both the EU and China. I wonder if Bilderberg group member Radoslav Sikorski will be gloating on Twitter when secondary sanctions will be imposed on the EU if they import Chinese solar panels.
- Throaway199999 6mo agoHm...I don't think the blockade is long-term feasible, so Im not sure I buy the logic there.
- dgellow 6mo ago> the US started the Iran war to maintain a blockade to control both the EU and China Where are you getting this from? That’s not even remotely close to my understanding of the situation
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoIt's clear the net effect is a subsidy to the North American hydrocarbon sector at the expense of Europe and China and India. Oil prices were falling, now they're not. Places like Alberta were going to run a deficit because oil prices were low. Now they're not. People were buying from the middle east. Now they're less-so. Stated goals and whether this was accidental is a whole other question. I'm not sure why people as a whole don't seem to have absorbed the fact that North America is an energy exporting economy now, not a net importer. The question is whether North American consumers really like that they're paying so much more at the pump (and, shortly, for food prices) on account of oil executives making off like bandits.
- dgellow 6mo agoOk, if we mean the effect I agree. But the parent was talking about intent, or at least that’s how I read it
- Aboutplants 6mo agoI think the Natural Gas producers in the US are missing a massive opportunity by not fully pushing Fuel Cell technology. The industry (Nat Gas) has two main issues, 1) Production ie fracking and 2) Emissions. Fuel Cells take care of #2 completely and for #1 the argument is easily made that since you solve the emissions problem, you have to accept a certain amount of impact on any extraction of energy (lithium, etc). We however control the production within our borders (national/energy security) and are not pushing the messy extraction on third world countries (dealing with our own trash - similar to dealing with nuclear waste) Bloom has done a good job of late and Watt Fuel Cell is another company I am keeping an eye on. I truly believe that this is a major path forward in the US as the infrastructure already exists and we are the best in the world at gas extraction.
- balderdash 6mo agoIf anyone was serious about energy security in North America or Europe they would be building polysilicon, ingot, and wafer capacity.
- derektank 6mo agoThe world’s dependence on China for solar panel manufacturing is troubling, but unlike oil, once the generating facility is installed you’re no longer dependent on your supplier (at least for a decade or two). I would be more concerned about batteries if I was in government
- intrasight 6mo agoOur dependence on China for cars is even scarier.
- throw3433 6mo agoIndia has huge surplus capcity of solar panels. Sadly Trump put 100-200% tariffs on Indian solar panels. Its very easy and cheap to produce these outside China.
- morpheos137 6mo agoFunny, physics and economics don't just behave the way we want. The reason we use liquid and gaseous fossil fuels is not a cultural quirk but a function of energy density and fungibility. Each barell of crude pumped from the ground is a natural battery storing energy from hundreds, maybe thousands of years of biosolar collection millions of years ago. Until something is cheaper at scale and of comparable density there is no economic alternative to hydrocarbons. Maybe massive nuclear investment or ocean thermal extraction will be away out. Oil is literally solar power comprrssed in carbon hydrogen bonds and stored for aeons.
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoAll of this can be true and at the same time it's massively harmful to use. It remains true that the actual total costs of using hydrocarbons are not factored into their actual real world market exchange rate. And every time we've made modest steps to try to make that happen (carbon taxes, regulation) the resistance has been swift and brutal.
- morpheos137 6mo agoI never said HC economy is not without externality. However I do believe forcing HC substitutes before nature (depletion) forces them may be a net utility loss. The evidence is very thin a little sea level rise and a little temperature rise is worse for humanity in net than losing tecnological society.
- cmrdporcupine 6mo agoThey're not going to deplete, every time we make an estimate on that we just find more or more ways to extract. We just keep finding more. And if we did run out of oil and gas somehow, people with this mentality will just burn coal again. Until there is a regulatory model which forces the externalities to be accounted for, it's just a race to the bottom.
- morpheos137 6mo ago
- apexalpha 6mo agoAfter the 2022 energy crisis we renovated our house and moved fully electric. Heatpump, induction cooking, battery, etc... It was already a easy financial case to be made, let alone the extra comfort. But now it's a no-brainer. I get €100 back every month now, while others around me pay up to €300 per month. The way the Chinese manufacturers are scaling production of batteries is something to behold. In 2022 I bought 20kWh + 10kW inverter + installation for €7500. My buddy just ordered a 54kWh battery for €6500... And it's not slowing down, they're only gaining speed with the introduction of over cheaper materials like Sodium batteries. The Chinese are the only reason I remain somewhat optimistic of our chances of combatting climate change. Europe is too lazy, the US just gave up, really.
- dcuthbertson 6mo agoI'm curious as to how low a temperature your heat pump will operate. I live in New England and replaced a whole-house air conditioner with a heat pump, but the heat pump works only to 35F. Much colder than that, and an auxiliary electric heater kicked in. The first Winter cost me about $800 over my gas-fired forced hot water heating system. I had the contractor disable the electric heat in the Spring and rewire the thermostats to start the (high efficiency) furnace when the outdoor temp got too low.
- testing22321 6mo agoWe got a heat pump in BC Canada, it’s rated down to -30C. We also got solar, our entire power bill (all heating, cooking, lights, computers, etc) is $500 for the year. Best decision ever.
- anotherhue 6mo agoThat depends on the refrigerant, the new Mitsubishis are effective at that and lower temperatures.
- apexalpha 6mo agoMine can go until -25c they say: https://www.nibe.eu/en-eu/products/heat-pumps/air-water-heat-pumps/s2125 https://www.nibe.eu/en-eu/products/heat-pumps/air-water-heat... We don't ever get those temps so I should be fine. My biggest issue is not cold but mist. I live near a river in a valley and have underestimated how much mist hurts performance around ~1c outside. It needs to defrost often, because of the high moisture content in the outside air where I live. But it also has a normal, resistive heating 9kW backup. But for financial reasons this is considered 'emergency only'.