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I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacent

by erelong 4mo ago

I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind (personally I like both but I can see some shortcomings - for example I have heard that ai datacenters are using gas at times because of its flexibility) So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Or will they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere?

mrhottakes 4mo ago
If people have strong opinions about renewable energy, just don't waste your breath. You can't reason someone out of an opinion they arrived at unreasonably.
- jahnu 4mo ago
  Keep hammering the point that they are cheaper. If they are open to more advanced discussion point to the amazing structural changes that batteries are only starting to bring. Tell them something that sounds mildly like science fiction but is in fact happening already and will be HUGE. E.g. the battery you’ll have in your AC/stove/car will save you money or even make you money when part of a smart mesh of DERs. Maybe I’m too optimistic :)
  - mrhottakes 4mo ago
    "It's cheaper" is a good route, but a lot of these people have decided they don't care about objective facts in favor of what their favorite media personality says.
  - WarmWash 4mo ago
    Let me preface this that I am a huge advocate for renewables, and have been spending borderline unreasonable amounts on turning my home green. The rub with "solar is cheaper" is that those values are almost always calculated using an ideal environment. Solar is cheapest when you are using flat barren land in Arizona where an acre costs $500, the sun shines 330 days a year, you are bulk buying 750 MW of panels, and the bureaucracy is a single rubber stamp. Those are the numbers that ultimately trickle to headlines. Things get much more complicated (read: expensive), when you are in the North East, an acre costs $12,000, the sun shines 170 days a year, you're bulk buying a few dozen MW of panels, and the bureaucracy is 6 different government bodies full of permits and assessments. In that situation, a gas plant that produces 10x more power on 10x less land becomes very appealing to people who are already getting crushed by soaring electricity bills. (My take: we're just going to have to deal with higher costs). So I am all with you on abandoning fossil fuels, but to someone who is firmly in gas camp, they will have legitimate ground to stand on when balking at costs. "It's cheaper" is unfortunately not all encompassing.
    - martijnvds 4mo ago
      Every kWh your panels make from sunlight that you use immediately (or store "behind the meter"), you don't have to buy from the grid. And not buying something tends to be cheaper than buying :)
      - marcianx 4mo ago
        Building it out and maintaining it isn't free. And per a friend who's been selling consumer solar installations for years in the North East and gotten disillusioned: the equipment maintenance, repairability, and replacement story isn't great at the company they last worked at and results in a lot of environmental waste. One of the reasons they left. Of course, this is just second-hand information - I don't personally have much intuition for how widespread the issue is.
        blackjack_ 4mo ago
        Every gallon of gas you use was produced far away, shipped halfway around the world for processing, and shipped back to you. Even if you are in the US, we basically don’t have the equipment to process our own gasoline from the crude we produce. This means that millions and millions of machines have to be maintained, shipping lanes have to stay open, infrastructure has to stay profitable, distribution has to stay easy and cheap. The web is invisible to the end user, but it is massively complicated and expensive to upkeep. Solar, once you have the panels you have to clean them every once in a while, and replace a failing panel every once in a while. But they produce for ~30 years after being made once. So it’s funny to argue about environmental waste in this way. It’s an issue, but everything in a solar panel can basically be recycled and we are seeing the facilities start to come online as the first wave of PV panels starts dying off.
        jimbokun 4mo ago
        All of that is still much better than for fossil fuels.
      - rcxdude 4mo ago
        Residential solar doesn't make that much sense from a system point of view - it's a lot more expensive than utility grade solar for the same amount of energy, but with the way the energy market works retail electricity prices are much higher than wholesale prices and that makes the upside of rooftop solar a lot bigger for consumers.
- Ray20 4mo ago
  In fact, it's very easy to reason them to change their minds: 1. Take statistics from any of these excellent solar power plants for, say, five years time span 2. Find the worst week in terms of energy production in these statistics 3. Explain to the renewable energy skeptic how this 20+ times drop in productivity will be compensated for users 4. The skeptic is successfully convinced and becomes a renewable energy proponent
- cryptopian 4mo ago
  It's a challenge, but remember that there is a lot of money in trying to convince people about the status quo. I'd keep in mind the kind of tactics that fossil fuel companies will be using to convince people otherwise: - Using old data - the price of renewables and storage technology have fallen through the floor but bad actors are quite happy to use outdated numbers to convince you that they're not cheap - Ignoring existing downsides - renewables have issues and we shouldn't forget that, but it's easy to forget what we're replacing. e.g. Lithium mines are environmentally unfriendly, but you dig it out of the ground and turn it into a battery once (and bonus - it's recyclable). Oil and gas must be continually dug out of the ground and burned - But China... - I don't think most people realise quite how quickly the rest of the world is pushing on with renewables
pstuart 4mo ago
I'm going to guess they are against it because it's "woke". A question might be "why is it woke?" And if it's because libtards like it, then you can point out that libtards like coffee, beer, sports, etc -- so when will they boycott those?
- philipallstar 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mrhottakes 4mo ago
    Plenty of people call renewable energy woke
    - wallst07 4mo ago
      "Plenty" Plenty of people stick things in their butt and go to the emergency room. So what.
      - pstuart 4mo ago
        You seem to be aggrieved by my "politicization" of the topic of renewables. It's absolutely the case and I take no pleasure in bringing the matter up but it's relevant to the discussion. The Trump admin has been very vocal that it wants to only support fossil fuels and nuclear, and that wind and solar are woke and must be destroyed. I would love to be proven wrong but I don't think thats possible. There's an insane amount of wealth tied to fossil fuels (from energy giants down to field workers and well-owners). They all have an incredibly strong bias to keep that money train coming, and the demonization of renewables is directly tied to that.
  - dudefeliciano 4mo ago
    > Woke is cultural Marxism > Woke is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination, often in the construction stay woke. [1] > Cultural Marxism is a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents Western Marxism (especially the Frankfurt School) as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness. [2] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...
graemep 4mo ago
I do not think the two should be lumped together. They do both need storage but solar is more predictable. Winds can be low for extended periods.
- ceejayoz 4mo ago
  > Winds can be low for extended periods. So can sun, but that's why we build both where that's unusual. We've got plenty of stats and data gathering on where it's reliably sunny/windy enough.
  - lstodd 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - fredophile 4mo ago
      Can you point to large scale solar or wind projects that were shoved into places that have extended periods of low sunlight or wind?
      - lstodd 4mo ago
        The entire Energiewende for example.
        8note 4mo ago
        germany is producing tons of solar energy though? can you be more specific and give 10 examples of german solar plants that produce ~0W electricity in a year? they might be a lot more productive than you think
        lstodd 4mo ago
        Germany is producing some solar energy. This is of course indisputable. They paid for that by selling most of their industry to China because energy costs became unbearable. Was this the right tradeoff?
dnautics 4mo ago
it depends. some places it makes sense, some places it doesn't. it will be adopted when the money speaks. the good news is that money is a reasonably close proxy to "environmental benefit" (balancing the environmental costs of green infra production versus dirtiness of gas generation)
- tialaramex 4mo ago
  > some places it doesn't I can see this for wind, but not solar. PV turns sunlight into electrical energy. The whole damp rock gets sunlight on the outside, why not build panels anywhere? For wind yeah, if you live one of those boring flat places which gets tornadoes a wind turbine is definitely a bad idea, it won't make much energy and then a tornado turns it into scrap and possibly destroys nearby things with chunks of debris.
  - vincnetas 4mo ago
    If we can build skyscrapers that can survive tornadoes, can wind turbines be made tornado proof?
    - bob1029 4mo ago
      I believe this is one of those having your cake & eating your cake scenarios. Wind turbines are designed to be aerodynamically loaded on purpose. The blades can pitch arbitrarily to compensate for unwanted loads in the axial flow direction, but beyond a certain point it doesn't matter anymore because wind can do a lot of other things.
    - ceejayoz 4mo ago
      Can we? https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/the-tower-survived-tornado-downtown-fort-worth-2000-storm-weather/287-1c4c4458-4aef-4ce0-ba1a-cda40bf802d9 https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/the-t... > Before March 28, 2000, a tornado had never collided with a skyscraper. > Bank One Tower sat, rotting. The Fort Worth Fire Department declared the building a fire hazard, forcing the Bass family to replace the plywood planks with fireproof metal.
id34 4mo ago
I recommend this video from YouTuber Technology Connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM I appreciate his ability to talk renewables for almost an hour and barely mention climate change. This video has a bit of a twist ending, but he gives you a solid out before he becomes political if you're showing it to someone who won't be receptive to that messaging.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  Is this the version he reuploaded? I saw it the day he posted it, and I have never seen that man more passionate and awesome. He mentioned later that he toned it down, which is almost a bummer!
  - terribleperson 4mo ago
    If this is the video I'm thinking of, both versions are up. I think the toned down version is meant to be more palatable to certain people.
    - id34 4mo ago
      Correct - the version I linked is his more aggressive version, but he does give a soft out with 30 minutes remaining. He mentions that he has also uploaded the alternative version for those who want to share it with someone who wouldn't enjoy the ending of this version.
    - gabrielsroka 4mo ago
      The one above is the public long version. it has a link to this unlisted short version https://youtu.be/Zgxb8I1nk2I https://youtu.be/Zgxb8I1nk2I
- cryptopian 4mo ago
  For those who don't have the time to watch, the biggest point he hammers home: fossil fuels are a single use energy source; renewables keep producing energy. So long as you've built the infrastructure and kept it maintained, the energy continues to come. With fossil fuels, you have to build turbines, then you have to remove it from the earth, then you have to ship it to said turbines, then you burn it and it's gone.
okr 4mo ago
I find no arguments against solar. I can put it everywhere and has no moving parts. Once storing is solved, perfect. But wind?? Huge nature areas are destroyed by beton fundaments, rotors break, and just in germany was a scandal lately about recycling, as the first structures need to be renewed.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- fredophile 4mo ago
  It's not like other forms of power generation don't have similar problems. Solar PV cells lose efficiency and need to be replaced. Nuclear has very long term storage concerns. Coal and natural gas plants have finite expected lifetimes before the whole plant needs to shut down.
- JuniperMesos 4mo ago
  Wind power does seem to be generally not quite as good as photovoltaic solar power. But yeah every source of electricity has some downside. I don't have any good reason to care more about the possibility of rotors breaking or how to recycle the turbines, than I do about the possibility that a natural gas peaker plant might suffer a mechanical failure.
tejohnso 4mo ago
Why would you be adamantly against solar? That sounds like someone who is of the opinion that solar is NEVER a good idea. Nonsense.
- outside1234 4mo ago
  Fox News is funded by fossil. They literally ship a 24x7 feed of why fossil is good and renewables are bad. It is their business model: money for placed content to shape opinions. So someone watching that has strong opinions about renewables that is hard to overcome.
- hstaab 4mo ago
  I’ve talked to some local people who are convinced that panels slowly leach heavy metals into the surrounding ground. They mainly argue against it on residential & farm land (Midwest USA) for this reason.
  - tialaramex 4mo ago
    The argument I've seen against it for prime farm land in the UK is "Well we could use it to farm things" but that maybe lands less well in the US because of the enormous scales involved. "¿Por qué no los dos?" is the obvious retort in a huge region like that. I've never seen "heavy metals" conspiracies, though I'm sure if I just wait I'll run into some because people sure do like making up reasons good things are bad...
outside1234 4mo ago
You need to include batteries in the equation: solar, wind, water and batteries. What California and others have shown is that you can replace natural gas peaker plants (literally - tear out natural gas turbines) with batteries and get both superior cost dynamics and "dispatchability" (aka turning them on and off). Batteries have millisecond level dispatch, peaker plants have hours level dispatch.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
  Gas peaker plants can be turned on in minutes. Coal takes hours.
- JuniperMesos 4mo ago
  California has very expensive residential electricity. This isn't solely due to the amount of solar and natural gas in the electricity generation mix, but it does mean that what California is doing is not a great guide to what other jurisdictions ought to be doing.
Aurornis 4mo ago
I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.
- ceejayoz 4mo ago
  > Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? They're mainlining paid propaganda from the fossil fuel industry. Same dynamic that made people defend cigarettes into the late 90s.
- fp64 4mo ago
  I'm not against solar, my primary issue is that in northern Europe there's not much sun at some times. Energy storage and "smart grid" are not there yet, in my view, but maybe should have come first. Hydrogen (electrolysis) sounds a bit wild and impractical to me.
  - ceejayoz 4mo ago
    Finland: > The net result: Pornainen fulfilled all of its municipal climate targets with a single installation. Oil use dropped 100 percent, emissions fell 70 percent, and woodchip combustion was cut by 60 percent. According to the Mayor of the Municipality of Pornainen, Antti Kuusela, the municipality now heats all its public buildings, including a new sports arena opening in September 2026, entirely through this district heating network. https://interestingengineering.com/energy/sand-battery-polar-night-energy https://interestingengineering.com/energy/sand-battery-polar...
    - fp64 4mo ago
      That's for 5000 people. And only covers heat. Happy if it can scale and move from prototype to long-term deployment at a reasonable cost, serving heavy industry in manufacturing.
      - ceejayoz 4mo ago
newyankee 4mo ago
LCOE is the talking point that should shut down all others along with LCOS of LFP batteries
- davedx 4mo ago
  Yeah the relatively recent paper that takes LCOE and adds back a bunch of cherry picked system costs is a PITA to refute because it's inherently complicated and actually has some good points. The problem is every good argument for renewables will always inevitably have someone come up with some kind of counterpoint that on the surface may seem reasonable to those without the time or inclination to deeply research it all. Energy is complicated. FWIW I agree with a sibling poster who said to just say "its cheaper".
davedx 4mo ago
- cheaper - much less upfront capex, lower operating costs - removes nasty geopolitical dependencies on eg gulf state oil and gas; costs are more predictable - easier to plan and build because the base units are much smaller Variability remains a valid objection, to which the main answer today is "batteries. Lots of batteries. And other cheaper longer duration storage, like sand heat storage, vanadium flow, and good old pumped hydro."
_ZeD_ 4mo ago
> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind let me guess... they sell oil?
- tialaramex 4mo ago
  Nah, it definitely comes along for the ride. Maybe watch Folding Idea's (lengthy, sorry, he does that) documentary "In Search Of A Flat Earth". That documentary is about QAnon (not about the "Flat Earth" per se) but it helps you understand that "But that's nonsense" is the point. I call this "Facts Aren't True" because that's the core of the idea. They don't like facts, the facts are uncomfortable, they can make up a better truth which does make them comfortable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
- dalyons 4mo ago
  no, sadly its somehow become part of the global culture war. Fossil is right wing manly dominant power, renewables are woke and womanly and left. Its all electrons how did we get here jesus.
  - wallst07 4mo ago
    Do you realize you are part of the global culture war by posting your comment? Did you know Texas produces more solar energy than California? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05032026/inside-clean-energy-texas-utility-scale-solar/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05032026/inside-clean-ene...
    - ZeroGravitas 4mo ago
      Your comment, as appropriate for a culture war is both subtly misleading and also just flat out wrong. Quote from your own article: > And if we look at the sum of utility-scale and small-scale solar, California remains ahead. The more subtle misdirection is obvious from the first sentence: > Texas, which already leads the country in electricity generation from natural gas, coal and wind, has passed California to become the leader in utility-scale solar. So they lead on gas, coal, wind and (utility) solar in absolute terms. Which points to them being big and/or power hungry rather than particularly green. Important to call this out as fans of hands off government highlight Texas as their champion for renewables rollout when they are solidly mid-ranking by percentage. And they had government support for wind under previous Republican governers and all but one federal governments.
toast0 4mo ago
> So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Increasing utility energy prices worked for me. I wasn't anti-solar, but it didn't seem worthwhile for me. When the utility price doubled over three years (or just about), the math makes sense now. I'm not looking for solar to acheive grid independence though, I already have a whole house generator for that, because utility power is two nines reliable around here.
black_puppydog 4mo ago
check volts.wtf and notably these recent podcast episodes: https://www.volts.wtf/p/sooner-than-you-think-electricity https://www.volts.wtf/p/sooner-than-you-think-electricity https://www.volts.wtf/p/giving-clean-electricity-a-political https://www.volts.wtf/p/giving-clean-electricity-a-political
stetrain 4mo ago
We have already reached the point where solar and wind produce new MW of power cheaper than any other power source you can build. Of course that energy generation comes with the caveat of being variable with sun and wind. It can still be a net benefit to the grid but the variability means alternative energy sources are still needed. The cost trend of installing solar/wind plus enough storage capacity to provide steady grid power will eventually cross over to also being cheaper than other sources of energy. At which point the only reason to be against it is if you prefer artificially subsidizing another energy source.
belorn 4mo ago
A few different things would help. First would be to be clear and unambiguous when it comes to building gas/oil thermal power plants in order to deal with the intermittence problem of solar and wind. Political strategies in wind and solar is built on trust, and people will quickly become unconvinced when politicians are dishonest/ambiguous about the requirements that is needed to support a grid with a high ratio of wind and solar. Using fossil fuels as the reserve energy for when the weather is bad allows the producers of reserve energy to demand high market prices, to the point where a whole month in EU can cost as much as a full year. Even if solar and wind would put the grid costs to zero for 90% of the time, it doesn't make the cost for the consumer any lower if the fossil fueled "reserve energy" can increase their price by 10x. Selling solar and wind require some kind of solution here. Reserve energy also want to be paid if they are expected to stand-by 365 days a week, which is a big reason why EU subsidizes to fossil fueled thermal power plants are not decreasing when the ratio of wind and solar goes up. That costs is then added as a grid fee/taxes, hiding the true cost. Paying first to keep the fossil fueled power plants warm and ready when solar and wind is producing, and then pay them a second time for whatever the market price is when they are producing is a very costly way to operate a grid. And last is the transmission costs. Switching between multiple different energy sources depending on the weather has a high demand for a very flexible infrastructure in terms of transmitting energy from where it is being produced to where it is being consumed. In south of Sweden as an example, the cost of transmission infrastructure and the cost of reserve energy is now the majority of consumers electricity bill, with cost associated with production of energy being a small minority. Solving those issues is what will convince people of the viability of wind and solar.
- smartbit 4mo ago
  Both users and companies could be incentivized to lower their consumption of electricity by increasing the price astronomical during periods of scarcity. A minimum of 1 Ampere per household without surcharge and beyond that enough to pay off the infrastructure. Taking a sauna or charging your car during peak times would costs, let’s say, €500. Assuming that in the north of Sweden there is ample Hydro energy, in the north the surcharge would be lower than in the south. I strongly believe people and organizations would accommodate, just like during winter times in the north of Sweden one wears a different coat than in the south. But with the current system one isn’t incentivized to adapt power consumption to cost and hence more & more costs are made to build power lines from the north to feed the south of Sweden. And the same for standby fossil fuel plants. Also prepaid electricity bills with automatic cutoff when exceeding, remaining 1 Ampere. Similar to the days when homes/tents would be heated by burning wood, during summertime one needs to collect enough firewood for the whole winter. Different times but in concept nothing new.
kstenerud 4mo ago
You can't "sell" the opposite to someone who is expressing a loyalty belief. If their tribe believes in the opposite, then no amount of logic will change their minds - only a change of their or their group's allegiance will change their minds.
snehk 4mo ago
> So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Ensure that the prices decrease for people with existing contracts. The hatred comes from people being told that it's better and cheaper now while the price is significantly higher than before. If I didn't have solar panels on my roof that basically cover all my energy needs, I'd be absolutely furious seeing politicians pat themselves on the back for shutting down nuclear power plants and talking about how energy is now cheaper at some foreign exchange where I can not buy while I pay more and more every month.
foxyv 4mo ago
Solar/wind is the cheapest form of power generation by far. You just can't beat it because they don't have any fuel costs. Gas peaker plants will always make sense until we have enough grid scale batteries. They will hold on for now until the price of natural gas hits rock bottom. But with the current advances in low cost battery technology I see them becoming less and less necessary. They would probably already be dead if hydrofracturing hadn't propped up the cost of gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
- Neywiny 4mo ago
  I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. That's why the monetary payoff time for installing solar is non-zero. Versus a backup generator you're paying 2-3x the cost upfront. And yes we know the running cost is almost 0, the maintenance is almost nothing, etc etc, but I could see that argument not holding as much water as we need it to.
  - runtime_terror 4mo ago
    Are you talking backup generator vs solar for a home? If so, solar continually supplies power without paying for an input vs a backup generator which is only meant to run infrequently and is costly to run and requires you to pay for inputs and of course maintenance of an ICE. It's kinda an apples/oranges comparison
  - Retric 4mo ago
    Loans transfer upfront costs into operating costs, thus making upfront costs largely meaningless for anyone with access to cheap credit.
  - foxyv 4mo ago
    > I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. Why do you say this?
    - Neywiny 4mo ago
cloche 4mo ago
The sun will last forever (at least from our point of view).
dfee 4mo ago
if you require a stable energy source, neither wind nor solar (nor both) provide a complete strategy. they can be a part of a composite strategy, though. for both wind and solar, they're also quite taxing on the environment during manufacturing. the "true cost" is rarely reported. nuclear energy has a different set of problems (including social / political ones). here's that industry's take on the economics of wind energy: https://www.ans.org/news/article-638/the-economics-of-wind-power/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-638/the-economics-of-wind-p...
- ZeroGravitas 4mo ago
  That article is from 2011. Wind power had dropped in price about 70% since then. Notably going from being more expensive than fossil fuels to substantially cheaper.
- abenga 4mo ago
  > quite taxing on the environment during manufacturing What power source isn't?
anovikov 4mo ago
Why doing so? When there are so many people irrationally against something, there's always some upside in being closer to truth than the crowd. It's arbitrage.
Guid_NewGuid 4mo ago
I almost feel like it doesn't matter if Joe-public is on board or not at this stage. For as much as capitalism kinda got us into this mess, at this point the flywheel is going in the other direction and it's a natural market consequence that renewables will win. Lack of priced in externalities created the problem but the same economics will now save us.* The money men have no moral attachment to any source so given how cheap this mix has gotten it basically wins. * I'd point out without China and its Leninist command economy (as well as publicly funded research) getting the price of these technologies down to where it is now we'd still be doomed, but we are where we are so now the system necessarily will act in its own self interest to use the basically free energy. Is it going to be enough at this stage? Who knows, but I see reasons to be optimistic.
- JuniperMesos 4mo ago
  China's Leninist command economy also burned (and still does burn) tremendous amounts of fossil fuels to generate energy, just as the command economy of the Soviet Union did, and just as the more-or-less free markets of the western world did and still do. People burn fossil fuels because the energy that they generate is incredibly useful for everything in the modern world, regardless of the economic system governing any particular jurisdiction.
ZeroGravitas 4mo ago
In Australia conservatives with solar on their own roof continue to complain about renewables generally. It's just a weird cultural thing for some people.
- rasz 4mo ago
  In Poland main opposition candidate for the next prime minister Przemysław Czarnek declared he has solar panels, but he will be removing it because solar is bad (1). He also announced new election slogan "Renewables, shite-wables" (loosly translated oze sroze). https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/przemyslaw-czarnek-tlumaczy-sie-z-oze-sroze-bede-demontowal-te-panele/3yfjfpp https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/przemyslaw-czarnek-tlumaczy-... 1 Solar was pretty good until PIS party lost elections and became Trump bitch, now they toe the coal/oil good solar/wind bad line. PIS already has one of their men poorly performing function of Poland president. His main election slogan was lowering energy prices, you can guess how that went :-) His latest trick was vetoing super cheap EU military loan because it was conditioned on buying European/Polish equipment meaning none of the money could be funneled to USA.
root-parent 4mo ago
>> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind Sounds like they have more serious issues going on there... :-)
marcosdumay 4mo ago
https://xkcd.com/3226/ https://xkcd.com/3226/ PV is getting on the range where it pays for itself in 3 or 4 years. If somebody is just "against it", well, I have to agree with the sibling that said you can't reason with that person.
DonsDiscountGas 4mo ago
My understanding is the AI data centers use LNG just because it's the fastest way to spin up a lot of power without using much land/permits. Solar panels would be cheaper but it still requires a lot of land and permits, plus batteries for smoothing. I don't know why people would be "against" solar and wind. Even if they think global warning is a hoax, at a certain point (which was like 10 years ago) they're the cheapest option. So why not use them?
- dmd 4mo ago
  Simply because the “other team” likes them. That’s it.
gaiagraphia 4mo ago
Imagine being opposed to solar and wind.... Do people people really hate sun and clouds and stuff? Or are they against the physical capture of geographical processes? ... I've heard "muh birds" a few times. Ironically, it seems only those who eat chicken who seem to be worried about it :/
singpolyma3 4mo ago
Put it on your roof. Never pay for power again. Pretty easy sell for me.
deleted 4mo ago
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thrance 4mo ago
[flagged]
ufmace 4mo ago
I think there are 2 good and important points that make me re-think things some: First is technological advancement. It seems solar and wind and the supporting technologies, including battery storage and grid firming, are advancing very fast to become cheaper, more powerful, and more reliable. What was a reasonable argument ~15 years ago might actually be out of date today. To form a reasonable argument for today, you need to know the types of hardware, costs, and specs for what's on the market today. Second is that the recent improvements are all independent capitalistic companies building things for their own profit. They're not going to do things that are unprofitable, and if they did, they'd go out of business pretty fast. It is fair to criticize pushes by Government and activists to build this stuff, since both of them have advocated for unprofitable things plenty of times and suffer no consequences if the things they push are a terrible or unworkable idea. When it's an independent company, though, it's none of our business. I'm for success and functional systems, not ideology; if you want to build this stuff, believe you can make a profit doing so, and take ownership of the consequences if you are wrong or fail, then by all means go to it, and I'll cheer if you succeed.
1970-01-01 4mo ago
>they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere? Maybe not even then. Some still refuse to believe the Earth is round. They can die before they admit they were wrong.
rsync 4mo ago
"I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind ..." Ignore them because it doesn't matter. Physics causes finance, which causes politics ... and their politics will immediately change when the finance crosses whatever threshold they happen to be anchored to. That's different for different people and different situations but you can be sure it will happen. Those people will not pay markedly higher electrical bills or have a (relative) doubling of their cars TCO for their politics. Just be patient.
wayeq 4mo ago
> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind Yes, down with Big Sun
antonvs 4mo ago
> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind Compared to what? Are these people in the oil industry, by any chance?
Paradigma11 4mo ago
Show them actual lower consumer prices in lock step with an increased percentage of renewable energy. But you cant.

by erelong 4mo ago

mrhottakes 4mo ago

If people have strong opinions about renewable energy, just don't waste your breath. You can't reason someone out of an opinion they arrived at unreasonably.

jahnu 4mo ago
Keep hammering the point that they are cheaper. If they are open to more advanced discussion point to the amazing structural changes that batteries are only starting to bring. Tell them something that sounds mildly like science fiction but is in fact happening already and will be HUGE. E.g. the battery you’ll have in your AC/stove/car will save you money or even make you money when part of a smart mesh of DERs. Maybe I’m too optimistic :)
- mrhottakes 4mo ago
  "It's cheaper" is a good route, but a lot of these people have decided they don't care about objective facts in favor of what their favorite media personality says.
- WarmWash 4mo ago
  Let me preface this that I am a huge advocate for renewables, and have been spending borderline unreasonable amounts on turning my home green. The rub with "solar is cheaper" is that those values are almost always calculated using an ideal environment. Solar is cheapest when you are using flat barren land in Arizona where an acre costs $500, the sun shines 330 days a year, you are bulk buying 750 MW of panels, and the bureaucracy is a single rubber stamp. Those are the numbers that ultimately trickle to headlines. Things get much more complicated (read: expensive), when you are in the North East, an acre costs $12,000, the sun shines 170 days a year, you're bulk buying a few dozen MW of panels, and the bureaucracy is 6 different government bodies full of permits and assessments. In that situation, a gas plant that produces 10x more power on 10x less land becomes very appealing to people who are already getting crushed by soaring electricity bills. (My take: we're just going to have to deal with higher costs). So I am all with you on abandoning fossil fuels, but to someone who is firmly in gas camp, they will have legitimate ground to stand on when balking at costs. "It's cheaper" is unfortunately not all encompassing.
  - martijnvds 4mo ago
    Every kWh your panels make from sunlight that you use immediately (or store "behind the meter"), you don't have to buy from the grid. And not buying something tends to be cheaper than buying :)
    - marcianx 4mo ago
      Building it out and maintaining it isn't free. And per a friend who's been selling consumer solar installations for years in the North East and gotten disillusioned: the equipment maintenance, repairability, and replacement story isn't great at the company they last worked at and results in a lot of environmental waste. One of the reasons they left. Of course, this is just second-hand information - I don't personally have much intuition for how widespread the issue is.
      - blackjack_ 4mo ago
        Every gallon of gas you use was produced far away, shipped halfway around the world for processing, and shipped back to you. Even if you are in the US, we basically don’t have the equipment to process our own gasoline from the crude we produce. This means that millions and millions of machines have to be maintained, shipping lanes have to stay open, infrastructure has to stay profitable, distribution has to stay easy and cheap. The web is invisible to the end user, but it is massively complicated and expensive to upkeep. Solar, once you have the panels you have to clean them every once in a while, and replace a failing panel every once in a while. But they produce for ~30 years after being made once. So it’s funny to argue about environmental waste in this way. It’s an issue, but everything in a solar panel can basically be recycled and we are seeing the facilities start to come online as the first wave of PV panels starts dying off.
      - jimbokun 4mo ago
        All of that is still much better than for fossil fuels.
    - rcxdude 4mo ago
      Residential solar doesn't make that much sense from a system point of view - it's a lot more expensive than utility grade solar for the same amount of energy, but with the way the energy market works retail electricity prices are much higher than wholesale prices and that makes the upside of rooftop solar a lot bigger for consumers.
Ray20 4mo ago
In fact, it's very easy to reason them to change their minds: 1. Take statistics from any of these excellent solar power plants for, say, five years time span 2. Find the worst week in terms of energy production in these statistics 3. Explain to the renewable energy skeptic how this 20+ times drop in productivity will be compensated for users 4. The skeptic is successfully convinced and becomes a renewable energy proponent
cryptopian 4mo ago
It's a challenge, but remember that there is a lot of money in trying to convince people about the status quo. I'd keep in mind the kind of tactics that fossil fuel companies will be using to convince people otherwise: - Using old data - the price of renewables and storage technology have fallen through the floor but bad actors are quite happy to use outdated numbers to convince you that they're not cheap - Ignoring existing downsides - renewables have issues and we shouldn't forget that, but it's easy to forget what we're replacing. e.g. Lithium mines are environmentally unfriendly, but you dig it out of the ground and turn it into a battery once (and bonus - it's recyclable). Oil and gas must be continually dug out of the ground and burned - But China... - I don't think most people realise quite how quickly the rest of the world is pushing on with renewables

pstuart 4mo ago

I'm going to guess they are against it because it's "woke". A question might be "why is it woke?" And if it's because libtards like it, then you can point out that libtards like coffee, beer, sports, etc -- so when will they boycott those?

philipallstar 4mo ago
[flagged]
- mrhottakes 4mo ago
  Plenty of people call renewable energy woke
  - wallst07 4mo ago
    "Plenty" Plenty of people stick things in their butt and go to the emergency room. So what.
    - pstuart 4mo ago
      You seem to be aggrieved by my "politicization" of the topic of renewables. It's absolutely the case and I take no pleasure in bringing the matter up but it's relevant to the discussion. The Trump admin has been very vocal that it wants to only support fossil fuels and nuclear, and that wind and solar are woke and must be destroyed. I would love to be proven wrong but I don't think thats possible. There's an insane amount of wealth tied to fossil fuels (from energy giants down to field workers and well-owners). They all have an incredibly strong bias to keep that money train coming, and the demonization of renewables is directly tied to that.
- dudefeliciano 4mo ago
  > Woke is cultural Marxism > Woke is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and discrimination, often in the construction stay woke. [1] > Cultural Marxism is a far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory that misrepresents Western Marxism (especially the Frankfurt School) as being responsible for modern progressive movements, identity politics, and political correctness. [2] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th...

graemep 4mo ago

I do not think the two should be lumped together. They do both need storage but solar is more predictable. Winds can be low for extended periods.

ceejayoz 4mo ago
> Winds can be low for extended periods. So can sun, but that's why we build both where that's unusual. We've got plenty of stats and data gathering on where it's reliably sunny/windy enough.
- lstodd 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - fredophile 4mo ago
    Can you point to large scale solar or wind projects that were shoved into places that have extended periods of low sunlight or wind?
    - lstodd 4mo ago
      The entire Energiewende for example.
      - 8note 4mo ago
        germany is producing tons of solar energy though? can you be more specific and give 10 examples of german solar plants that produce ~0W electricity in a year? they might be a lot more productive than you think
        lstodd 4mo ago
        Germany is producing some solar energy. This is of course indisputable. They paid for that by selling most of their industry to China because energy costs became unbearable. Was this the right tradeoff?

dnautics 4mo ago

it depends. some places it makes sense, some places it doesn't. it will be adopted when the money speaks. the good news is that money is a reasonably close proxy to "environmental benefit" (balancing the environmental costs of green infra production versus dirtiness of gas generation)

tialaramex 4mo ago
> some places it doesn't I can see this for wind, but not solar. PV turns sunlight into electrical energy. The whole damp rock gets sunlight on the outside, why not build panels anywhere? For wind yeah, if you live one of those boring flat places which gets tornadoes a wind turbine is definitely a bad idea, it won't make much energy and then a tornado turns it into scrap and possibly destroys nearby things with chunks of debris.
- vincnetas 4mo ago
  If we can build skyscrapers that can survive tornadoes, can wind turbines be made tornado proof?
  - bob1029 4mo ago
    I believe this is one of those having your cake & eating your cake scenarios. Wind turbines are designed to be aerodynamically loaded on purpose. The blades can pitch arbitrarily to compensate for unwanted loads in the axial flow direction, but beyond a certain point it doesn't matter anymore because wind can do a lot of other things.
  - ceejayoz 4mo ago
    Can we? https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/the-tower-survived-tornado-downtown-fort-worth-2000-storm-weather/287-1c4c4458-4aef-4ce0-ba1a-cda40bf802d9 https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/the-t... > Before March 28, 2000, a tornado had never collided with a skyscraper. > Bank One Tower sat, rotting. The Fort Worth Fire Department declared the building a fire hazard, forcing the Bass family to replace the plywood planks with fireproof metal.

id34 4mo ago

I recommend this video from YouTuber Technology Connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM I appreciate his ability to talk renewables for almost an hour and barely mention climate change. This video has a bit of a twist ending, but he gives you a solid out before he becomes political if you're showing it to someone who won't be receptive to that messaging.

Schiendelman 4mo ago
Is this the version he reuploaded? I saw it the day he posted it, and I have never seen that man more passionate and awesome. He mentioned later that he toned it down, which is almost a bummer!
- terribleperson 4mo ago
  If this is the video I'm thinking of, both versions are up. I think the toned down version is meant to be more palatable to certain people.
  - id34 4mo ago
    Correct - the version I linked is his more aggressive version, but he does give a soft out with 30 minutes remaining. He mentions that he has also uploaded the alternative version for those who want to share it with someone who wouldn't enjoy the ending of this version.
  - gabrielsroka 4mo ago
    The one above is the public long version. it has a link to this unlisted short version https://youtu.be/Zgxb8I1nk2I https://youtu.be/Zgxb8I1nk2I
cryptopian 4mo ago
For those who don't have the time to watch, the biggest point he hammers home: fossil fuels are a single use energy source; renewables keep producing energy. So long as you've built the infrastructure and kept it maintained, the energy continues to come. With fossil fuels, you have to build turbines, then you have to remove it from the earth, then you have to ship it to said turbines, then you burn it and it's gone.

okr 4mo ago

I find no arguments against solar. I can put it everywhere and has no moving parts. Once storing is solved, perfect. But wind?? Huge nature areas are destroyed by beton fundaments, rotors break, and just in germany was a scandal lately about recycling, as the first structures need to be renewed.

deleted 4mo ago
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fredophile 4mo ago
It's not like other forms of power generation don't have similar problems. Solar PV cells lose efficiency and need to be replaced. Nuclear has very long term storage concerns. Coal and natural gas plants have finite expected lifetimes before the whole plant needs to shut down.
JuniperMesos 4mo ago
Wind power does seem to be generally not quite as good as photovoltaic solar power. But yeah every source of electricity has some downside. I don't have any good reason to care more about the possibility of rotors breaking or how to recycle the turbines, than I do about the possibility that a natural gas peaker plant might suffer a mechanical failure.

tejohnso 4mo ago

Why would you be adamantly against solar? That sounds like someone who is of the opinion that solar is NEVER a good idea. Nonsense.

outside1234 4mo ago
Fox News is funded by fossil. They literally ship a 24x7 feed of why fossil is good and renewables are bad. It is their business model: money for placed content to shape opinions. So someone watching that has strong opinions about renewables that is hard to overcome.
hstaab 4mo ago
I’ve talked to some local people who are convinced that panels slowly leach heavy metals into the surrounding ground. They mainly argue against it on residential & farm land (Midwest USA) for this reason.
- tialaramex 4mo ago
  The argument I've seen against it for prime farm land in the UK is "Well we could use it to farm things" but that maybe lands less well in the US because of the enormous scales involved. "¿Por qué no los dos?" is the obvious retort in a huge region like that. I've never seen "heavy metals" conspiracies, though I'm sure if I just wait I'll run into some because people sure do like making up reasons good things are bad...

outside1234 4mo ago

You need to include batteries in the equation: solar, wind, water and batteries. What California and others have shown is that you can replace natural gas peaker plants (literally - tear out natural gas turbines) with batteries and get both superior cost dynamics and "dispatchability" (aka turning them on and off). Batteries have millisecond level dispatch, peaker plants have hours level dispatch.

0cf8612b2e1e 4mo ago
Gas peaker plants can be turned on in minutes. Coal takes hours.
JuniperMesos 4mo ago
California has very expensive residential electricity. This isn't solely due to the amount of solar and natural gas in the electricity generation mix, but it does mean that what California is doing is not a great guide to what other jurisdictions ought to be doing.

Aurornis 4mo ago

I don’t know how you can be against solar unless you’ve been given some uninformed talking points. Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? It’s hard to understand someone who is against passive energy collection.

ceejayoz 4mo ago
> Are they against solar subsidies or other policy provisions? They're mainlining paid propaganda from the fossil fuel industry. Same dynamic that made people defend cigarettes into the late 90s.
fp64 4mo ago
I'm not against solar, my primary issue is that in northern Europe there's not much sun at some times. Energy storage and "smart grid" are not there yet, in my view, but maybe should have come first. Hydrogen (electrolysis) sounds a bit wild and impractical to me.
- ceejayoz 4mo ago
  Finland: > The net result: Pornainen fulfilled all of its municipal climate targets with a single installation. Oil use dropped 100 percent, emissions fell 70 percent, and woodchip combustion was cut by 60 percent. According to the Mayor of the Municipality of Pornainen, Antti Kuusela, the municipality now heats all its public buildings, including a new sports arena opening in September 2026, entirely through this district heating network. https://interestingengineering.com/energy/sand-battery-polar-night-energy https://interestingengineering.com/energy/sand-battery-polar...
  - fp64 4mo ago
    That's for 5000 people. And only covers heat. Happy if it can scale and move from prototype to long-term deployment at a reasonable cost, serving heavy industry in manufacturing.
    - ceejayoz 4mo ago

newyankee 4mo ago

LCOE is the talking point that should shut down all others along with LCOS of LFP batteries

davedx 4mo ago
Yeah the relatively recent paper that takes LCOE and adds back a bunch of cherry picked system costs is a PITA to refute because it's inherently complicated and actually has some good points. The problem is every good argument for renewables will always inevitably have someone come up with some kind of counterpoint that on the surface may seem reasonable to those without the time or inclination to deeply research it all. Energy is complicated. FWIW I agree with a sibling poster who said to just say "its cheaper".

davedx 4mo ago

- cheaper - much less upfront capex, lower operating costs - removes nasty geopolitical dependencies on eg gulf state oil and gas; costs are more predictable - easier to plan and build because the base units are much smaller Variability remains a valid objection, to which the main answer today is "batteries. Lots of batteries. And other cheaper longer duration storage, like sand heat storage, vanadium flow, and good old pumped hydro."

_ZeD_ 4mo ago

> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind let me guess... they sell oil?

tialaramex 4mo ago
Nah, it definitely comes along for the ride. Maybe watch Folding Idea's (lengthy, sorry, he does that) documentary "In Search Of A Flat Earth". That documentary is about QAnon (not about the "Flat Earth" per se) but it helps you understand that "But that's nonsense" is the point. I call this "Facts Aren't True" because that's the core of the idea. They don't like facts, the facts are uncomfortable, they can make up a better truth which does make them comfortable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
dalyons 4mo ago
no, sadly its somehow become part of the global culture war. Fossil is right wing manly dominant power, renewables are woke and womanly and left. Its all electrons how did we get here jesus.
- wallst07 4mo ago
  Do you realize you are part of the global culture war by posting your comment? Did you know Texas produces more solar energy than California? https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05032026/inside-clean-energy-texas-utility-scale-solar/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05032026/inside-clean-ene...
  - ZeroGravitas 4mo ago
    Your comment, as appropriate for a culture war is both subtly misleading and also just flat out wrong. Quote from your own article: > And if we look at the sum of utility-scale and small-scale solar, California remains ahead. The more subtle misdirection is obvious from the first sentence: > Texas, which already leads the country in electricity generation from natural gas, coal and wind, has passed California to become the leader in utility-scale solar. So they lead on gas, coal, wind and (utility) solar in absolute terms. Which points to them being big and/or power hungry rather than particularly green. Important to call this out as fans of hands off government highlight Texas as their champion for renewables rollout when they are solidly mid-ranking by percentage. And they had government support for wind under previous Republican governers and all but one federal governments.

toast0 4mo ago

> So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Increasing utility energy prices worked for me. I wasn't anti-solar, but it didn't seem worthwhile for me. When the utility price doubled over three years (or just about), the math makes sense now. I'm not looking for solar to acheive grid independence though, I already have a whole house generator for that, because utility power is two nines reliable around here.

black_puppydog 4mo ago

check volts.wtf and notably these recent podcast episodes: https://www.volts.wtf/p/sooner-than-you-think-electricity https://www.volts.wtf/p/sooner-than-you-think-electricity https://www.volts.wtf/p/giving-clean-electricity-a-political https://www.volts.wtf/p/giving-clean-electricity-a-political

stetrain 4mo ago

We have already reached the point where solar and wind produce new MW of power cheaper than any other power source you can build. Of course that energy generation comes with the caveat of being variable with sun and wind. It can still be a net benefit to the grid but the variability means alternative energy sources are still needed. The cost trend of installing solar/wind plus enough storage capacity to provide steady grid power will eventually cross over to also being cheaper than other sources of energy. At which point the only reason to be against it is if you prefer artificially subsidizing another energy source.

belorn 4mo ago

A few different things would help. First would be to be clear and unambiguous when it comes to building gas/oil thermal power plants in order to deal with the intermittence problem of solar and wind. Political strategies in wind and solar is built on trust, and people will quickly become unconvinced when politicians are dishonest/ambiguous about the requirements that is needed to support a grid with a high ratio of wind and solar. Using fossil fuels as the reserve energy for when the weather is bad allows the producers of reserve energy to demand high market prices, to the point where a whole month in EU can cost as much as a full year. Even if solar and wind would put the grid costs to zero for 90% of the time, it doesn't make the cost for the consumer any lower if the fossil fueled "reserve energy" can increase their price by 10x. Selling solar and wind require some kind of solution here. Reserve energy also want to be paid if they are expected to stand-by 365 days a week, which is a big reason why EU subsidizes to fossil fueled thermal power plants are not decreasing when the ratio of wind and solar goes up. That costs is then added as a grid fee/taxes, hiding the true cost. Paying first to keep the fossil fueled power plants warm and ready when solar and wind is producing, and then pay them a second time for whatever the market price is when they are producing is a very costly way to operate a grid. And last is the transmission costs. Switching between multiple different energy sources depending on the weather has a high demand for a very flexible infrastructure in terms of transmitting energy from where it is being produced to where it is being consumed. In south of Sweden as an example, the cost of transmission infrastructure and the cost of reserve energy is now the majority of consumers electricity bill, with cost associated with production of energy being a small minority. Solving those issues is what will convince people of the viability of wind and solar.

smartbit 4mo ago
Both users and companies could be incentivized to lower their consumption of electricity by increasing the price astronomical during periods of scarcity. A minimum of 1 Ampere per household without surcharge and beyond that enough to pay off the infrastructure. Taking a sauna or charging your car during peak times would costs, let’s say, €500. Assuming that in the north of Sweden there is ample Hydro energy, in the north the surcharge would be lower than in the south. I strongly believe people and organizations would accommodate, just like during winter times in the north of Sweden one wears a different coat than in the south. But with the current system one isn’t incentivized to adapt power consumption to cost and hence more & more costs are made to build power lines from the north to feed the south of Sweden. And the same for standby fossil fuel plants. Also prepaid electricity bills with automatic cutoff when exceeding, remaining 1 Ampere. Similar to the days when homes/tents would be heated by burning wood, during summertime one needs to collect enough firewood for the whole winter. Different times but in concept nothing new.

kstenerud 4mo ago

You can't "sell" the opposite to someone who is expressing a loyalty belief. If their tribe believes in the opposite, then no amount of logic will change their minds - only a change of their or their group's allegiance will change their minds.

snehk 4mo ago

> So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced? Ensure that the prices decrease for people with existing contracts. The hatred comes from people being told that it's better and cheaper now while the price is significantly higher than before. If I didn't have solar panels on my roof that basically cover all my energy needs, I'd be absolutely furious seeing politicians pat themselves on the back for shutting down nuclear power plants and talking about how energy is now cheaper at some foreign exchange where I can not buy while I pay more and more every month.

foxyv 4mo ago

Solar/wind is the cheapest form of power generation by far. You just can't beat it because they don't have any fuel costs. Gas peaker plants will always make sense until we have enough grid scale batteries. They will hold on for now until the price of natural gas hits rock bottom. But with the current advances in low cost battery technology I see them becoming less and less necessary. They would probably already be dead if hydrofracturing hadn't propped up the cost of gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Neywiny 4mo ago
I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. That's why the monetary payoff time for installing solar is non-zero. Versus a backup generator you're paying 2-3x the cost upfront. And yes we know the running cost is almost 0, the maintenance is almost nothing, etc etc, but I could see that argument not holding as much water as we need it to.
- runtime_terror 4mo ago
  Are you talking backup generator vs solar for a home? If so, solar continually supplies power without paying for an input vs a backup generator which is only meant to run infrequently and is costly to run and requires you to pay for inputs and of course maintenance of an ICE. It's kinda an apples/oranges comparison
- Retric 4mo ago
  Loans transfer upfront costs into operating costs, thus making upfront costs largely meaningless for anyone with access to cheap credit.
- foxyv 4mo ago
  > I think you've missed that all generators have upfront cost. Why do you say this?
  - Neywiny 4mo ago

cloche 4mo ago

The sun will last forever (at least from our point of view).

dfee 4mo ago

if you require a stable energy source, neither wind nor solar (nor both) provide a complete strategy. they can be a part of a composite strategy, though. for both wind and solar, they're also quite taxing on the environment during manufacturing. the "true cost" is rarely reported. nuclear energy has a different set of problems (including social / political ones). here's that industry's take on the economics of wind energy: https://www.ans.org/news/article-638/the-economics-of-wind-power/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-638/the-economics-of-wind-p...

ZeroGravitas 4mo ago
That article is from 2011. Wind power had dropped in price about 70% since then. Notably going from being more expensive than fossil fuels to substantially cheaper.
abenga 4mo ago
> quite taxing on the environment during manufacturing What power source isn't?

anovikov 4mo ago

Why doing so? When there are so many people irrationally against something, there's always some upside in being closer to truth than the crowd. It's arbitrage.

Guid_NewGuid 4mo ago

I almost feel like it doesn't matter if Joe-public is on board or not at this stage. For as much as capitalism kinda got us into this mess, at this point the flywheel is going in the other direction and it's a natural market consequence that renewables will win. Lack of priced in externalities created the problem but the same economics will now save us.* The money men have no moral attachment to any source so given how cheap this mix has gotten it basically wins. * I'd point out without China and its Leninist command economy (as well as publicly funded research) getting the price of these technologies down to where it is now we'd still be doomed, but we are where we are so now the system necessarily will act in its own self interest to use the basically free energy. Is it going to be enough at this stage? Who knows, but I see reasons to be optimistic.

JuniperMesos 4mo ago
China's Leninist command economy also burned (and still does burn) tremendous amounts of fossil fuels to generate energy, just as the command economy of the Soviet Union did, and just as the more-or-less free markets of the western world did and still do. People burn fossil fuels because the energy that they generate is incredibly useful for everything in the modern world, regardless of the economic system governing any particular jurisdiction.

ZeroGravitas 4mo ago

In Australia conservatives with solar on their own roof continue to complain about renewables generally. It's just a weird cultural thing for some people.

rasz 4mo ago
In Poland main opposition candidate for the next prime minister Przemysław Czarnek declared he has solar panels, but he will be removing it because solar is bad (1). He also announced new election slogan "Renewables, shite-wables" (loosly translated oze sroze). https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/przemyslaw-czarnek-tlumaczy-sie-z-oze-sroze-bede-demontowal-te-panele/3yfjfpp https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/przemyslaw-czarnek-tlumaczy-... 1 Solar was pretty good until PIS party lost elections and became Trump bitch, now they toe the coal/oil good solar/wind bad line. PIS already has one of their men poorly performing function of Poland president. His main election slogan was lowering energy prices, you can guess how that went :-) His latest trick was vetoing super cheap EU military loan because it was conditioned on buying European/Polish equipment meaning none of the money could be funneled to USA.

root-parent 4mo ago

>> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind Sounds like they have more serious issues going on there... :-)

marcosdumay 4mo ago

https://xkcd.com/3226/ https://xkcd.com/3226/ PV is getting on the range where it pays for itself in 3 or 4 years. If somebody is just "against it", well, I have to agree with the sibling that said you can't reason with that person.

DonsDiscountGas 4mo ago

My understanding is the AI data centers use LNG just because it's the fastest way to spin up a lot of power without using much land/permits. Solar panels would be cheaper but it still requires a lot of land and permits, plus batteries for smoothing. I don't know why people would be "against" solar and wind. Even if they think global warning is a hoax, at a certain point (which was like 10 years ago) they're the cheapest option. So why not use them?

dmd 4mo ago
Simply because the “other team” likes them. That’s it.

gaiagraphia 4mo ago

Imagine being opposed to solar and wind.... Do people people really hate sun and clouds and stuff? Or are they against the physical capture of geographical processes? ... I've heard "muh birds" a few times. Ironically, it seems only those who eat chicken who seem to be worried about it :/

singpolyma3 4mo ago

Put it on your roof. Never pay for power again. Pretty easy sell for me.

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thrance 4mo ago

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ufmace 4mo ago

I think there are 2 good and important points that make me re-think things some: First is technological advancement. It seems solar and wind and the supporting technologies, including battery storage and grid firming, are advancing very fast to become cheaper, more powerful, and more reliable. What was a reasonable argument ~15 years ago might actually be out of date today. To form a reasonable argument for today, you need to know the types of hardware, costs, and specs for what's on the market today. Second is that the recent improvements are all independent capitalistic companies building things for their own profit. They're not going to do things that are unprofitable, and if they did, they'd go out of business pretty fast. It is fair to criticize pushes by Government and activists to build this stuff, since both of them have advocated for unprofitable things plenty of times and suffer no consequences if the things they push are a terrible or unworkable idea. When it's an independent company, though, it's none of our business. I'm for success and functional systems, not ideology; if you want to build this stuff, believe you can make a profit doing so, and take ownership of the consequences if you are wrong or fail, then by all means go to it, and I'll cheer if you succeed.

1970-01-01 4mo ago

>they just adopt it once it's seen everywhere? Maybe not even then. Some still refuse to believe the Earth is round. They can die before they admit they were wrong.

rsync 4mo ago

"I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind ..." Ignore them because it doesn't matter. Physics causes finance, which causes politics ... and their politics will immediately change when the finance crosses whatever threshold they happen to be anchored to. That's different for different people and different situations but you can be sure it will happen. Those people will not pay markedly higher electrical bills or have a (relative) doubling of their cars TCO for their politics. Just be patient.

wayeq 4mo ago

> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind Yes, down with Big Sun

antonvs 4mo ago

> I know some people who are adamantly against solar and wind Compared to what? Are these people in the oil industry, by any chance?

Paradigma11 4mo ago

Show them actual lower consumer prices in lock step with an increased percentage of renewable energy. But you cant.