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Discussion (68 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
I honestly think renewables will grow exponentially from now all fosil fuel is dead.
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.
being from a 3rd world country and having lived in Europe & the US.
you quickly learn there's nothing called an adversary when adopting technology.
you adopt what works - ruminating about where something comes from, is a luxury.
then after you can either work towards self-sufficiency or keep being vulnerable.
Europe has been kept in this loop of talking about problems while not solving them.
the US - knowin' about the problems, but actively ignoring them due to politics.
Most countries have days to, at most, months of imports of oil in reserve. In contrast, a panel embargo wouldn’t have disastrous effects for years. But reliance it is the same. If you’re dependent on Chinese panels, China can cap your energy growth at whim. The degradation will be slow thereafter, but present nevertheless.
Using foreign panels for anything other than bootstrapping domestic or allied production would be the EU repeating its follies first with Russia and then with American LNG.
Dependency is only problematic if you lack an alternative, and nobody is developing alternatives.
My gawd, lots of people in Netherlands want to contribute to the green ecosystem but govt can't even get permitting straight and everything is gridlocked. The electric grid is full and new houses and companies can't be connected to the grid, wnd if you want to install a heat pump or an AC then there are thousands of rules and anybody else in the neighborhood can block you for the slightest thing.
Less talking and more doing. The Chinese at least are all do and almost no talk.
Sure, it's great to be independent when you can, but of all the groups you depend on, and all the ways you depend on them, this doesn't rank high!
How have you still not learned? By god Europe's in an awful place if you still don't get it.
You first import them en masse. You reverse engineer, learn how to do everything. Then you slowly invest in local manufacturing. China has shown you the way.
German industry does not want to pay anyone, imports cheap foreigners for tasks that have to be done in Germany and outsources the rest.
Given the hysteria involved in Great Power warmongering circles, much of it designed to increase military-industrial outlays, this is highly unlikely at present, especially in the USA where fossil fuel demand destruction is something the investors in the fracking boom and the oilfield and refinery operators don’t want to see, just look at Exxon and Chevron profits over the past month. I doubt the affiliated investor-owned utilities would be thrilled about an explosion in US rooftop solar installations either, as that cuts directly into their revenue stream.
Now, if you want to build monocrystalline Si PV at scale from scratch to catch up to China, that’s going to take a lot of investment over a decade, and given the historical and present reluctance of the US government to fund such R & D at scale (tiny DOE budgets), it’s all going to be private, and private rentier-finance capital is not going to fund a major competitor to fossil fuels in the USA - margins are tighter, you replace a commodity stream with a one-time purchase of equipment with a minimum 20-yr lifespan, and unless you tightly control the equipment and the electrical generation, there go your rents, I mean profits.
I know it sounds like satire, but there is a good reason tech exploded in the US 30 years ago while Europe is still making cars like it's the 1960's.
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.
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.
Of course I believe oil lobby doesn't want competition, so it will be a rich guys' fight.
Green energy is challenging because it has many times less density then every other form out there, among other reasons.
I wish that was true…
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...
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.
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.
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.
Heating is slower to change, but new homes and buildings could come with solar walls and ceilings.
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-s...
I’d love to be proven wrong on this.
We should absolutely stop burning them, though.
For instance, modern medicine requires petroleum and there's no real alternatives at this time.
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.