[baron_harkonnen]

The problem is that the cost of "actually doing something" and the penalty for doing nothing converge over time. Global CO2 production increases to go up, as does global oil production. These are just the byproducts of the energy needed to pay for our standard of living. The further back in time we go the cheaper and more realistic change would have been. But we live in a world where sustaining our way of life means continuing to use more fossil fuels at a faster rate and produce more co2 at a faster rate.

The issue is and always has been that there is no answer to the problem of "sustainability" that also includes limitless growth, and limitless growth is one of the essential conditions of global capitalism. The very premise of venture capital, the fuel of this forum, is that the proceeds of tomorrow can pay for today.

More renewables, more clean energy and more electric cars are not the answer to a sustainable future. The only reasonable path towards sustainability is less tomorrow then today, but nobody really wants that, and even now nobody would honestly vote for that. So the path we are on is one in which we see if we can grow fast enough to pay for the consequences of that.

[jellicle]

Solar and wind are cheaper than fossil fuels, today.

There is no reason at all why humans can't continue to use a lot of energy and also cease pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. All that is required is that the changeover be made.

[tucaz]

I don't mean to be rude here, but how else can one respond to such a statement?

What's the source of your claim?

If solar and wind were cheaper everybody would use it. It's not like there is a conspiracy of companies using a more expensive thing instead of a cheaper one to allegedly keep killing the planet.

The only way that it could be cheaper is if you include government subsidies to artificially make it "cheaper" by paying the remaining cost with our tax dollars. But, even if you include that, which is being done to help government friends, it is still not enough.

[ljf]

Even without subsidies solar is cheaper than coal - but its only cheaper while it is producing.

In terms of a stable supply noting beats natural gas right now, as solar or wind plus batteries is too expensive. In time that will change. Basically no one is making new coal fired plants any more and many are shutting down as they are too costly up against cheap natural gas.

Subsidy free new plants: https://www.carbonbrief.org/what-does-subsidy-free-renewable...

I can't wait until stored renewable is cheaper though. Bring on the clean air/low green house gas future.

[ljf]

I can't reply to you - but here is another article with some more detail

https://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2018/11/solar-a...

But no, it is cheaper today to generate energy with renewables when the sun shines or when the wind blows. Backed up with a gas plant which you can quickly shut down in the day when you have heaps of cheap solar coming into the system and then ramp back up at night as needed.

So are renewables a cheap when to generate energy? Yes.

Are they cheaper than most other sources currently? Yes

Are they dispatchable? No.

Will battery tech soon (10 years?) make them dispatchable? Likely.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/plunging-costs-make-solar-wind-a...

[tucaz]

Pardon me for my lack of understanding. If I understand it right, you are saying that solar is cheaper than coal if you exclude all the factors that make it more expensive from the analysis?

I can't wait for that same thing. The problem is, that they are not true now as the parent of my comment stated and will not be for a long while.

[tucaz]

From your reference:

"Last week saw the announcement of the world’s first “subsidy-free” offshore windfarm, the 750 megawatt (MW) Hollandse Kust Zuid scheme, due to be built by 2022 off the coast of the Netherlands, by Swedish state-backed utility Vattenfall."

I know that we are living in a time where words don't actually mean what they used to, but even here it is a stretch.

See how they use quotes between the term "subsidy-free"? It's because the money comes from a Sweden state-backed company. Where do you think that money comes from? The profits that the government generates from the value they product? No. It comes from taxpayers.

A couple of paragraphs below:

"These include a 650MW onshore windfarm at Markbygden in Sweden. Set to be the largest onshore scheme in Europe, it is under construction and due to be completed by the end of 2019. In November, aluminium firm Norsk Hydro agreed to buy a fixed amount of electricity from the windfarm for 19 years."

Hummm...so there is a company that promised to buy the energy from this other company for 19 years. Can we see the terms of the deal? As far as I can tell, this is all subsided somehow. If not directly, into the new plant, indirectly through tax-breaks for the buyers of the energy.

Last excerpt:

"At its simplest, subsidy-free means deployment without government-mandated support in the form of the types of scheme mentioned above. So, for example, without a FiT or CfD. On this measure, almost all of the projects listed above would count as subsidy-free."

A few more paragraphs below they even recognize that this is not subsidy-free.

If you keep going down the article, there is more admission about what they mean by "subsidy-free" and it's not what everyone who reads the headlines thinks it is.

[ljf]

A state backed supplier is different to a subsidy.

In the past the only way that solar and wind were economical was if the state covering part of the cost of the energy created - so the company could sell at x cents a unit and the govt would pay a proportion of that or a fixed amount per unit, agreed before the plant came online.

The state owning an energy production company is a different thing and is relatively common in Europe.

Also - do you know how much nearly all govt subsidise all engery suppliers? Coal, gas and nuclear? It is huge! I'll find some stats, but nuclear couldn't exist without massive subsidies and without the state picking up the cost of decommissioning. Even gas and coal get major breaks and deals - these are just the price that states pay for power (yes even in the US).

The aluminium company buying energy options again is not that unusual - I agree understanding if there are tax breaks would be good, but I wouldn't assume there are until I saw it documented.

[tucaz]

> A state backed supplier is different to a subsidy

I can agree if we change it to "A state-backed supplier could be different to a subsidy".

Let's take Brazil, my home country, for example. The last government used tax-payers money to keep Petrobras from raising the gas prices for too long. You can call this a subsidy or not. I know I do. It's the same case: Petrobras is a state-backed company and look at what happened?

I know there is a lot of energy subsidies and if it was by me I'd say cut'em all and let the market figure it out.

[baron_harkonnen]

So far it looks like, at least in the US, renewables are being used to expand energy capability, not replace fossil fuels. It's also worth that 45% of US "renewables" are biomass, so biofuels and wood burning.

Even if we do see replacement we still haven't solved the problem with wind and solar which is that they are intermittent power sources. You seriously cannot have a majority solar+wind for the foreseeable future, the storage necessary for a majority wind+solar grid is not a solved problem yet.

Then you haven't touched on the transportation energy problem, which is a much bigger problem. Efficient transport of resources around the planet is the essential ingredient in global capitalism. You need high-energy density fuels to do this (otherwise the fuel becomes the cargo). We have absolutely no solution for this currently.

Finally the fact that any suggestion that sustainability necessitates a drastic change in quality of life gets immediately downvoted is further evidence of how much trouble we are in. If, on HN, in a discussion of climate change, you can't say "maybe our lifestyle is inherently unsustainable" just shows how impossible the change necessary is to achieve.