[dpierce9]

The goal of adding solar isn’t to use less electricity or less energy per person. Solar electricity is cheap and stable because it doesn’t have a volatile, margin-sensitive commodity as an input (as opposed to oil, ng, coal). Specifically, what is cheaper is midday units of electricity which have a direct impact on commercial and industrial uses (i.e. the largest uses). When you make something cheaper people use MORE of it. This is a good thing since, normalizing for efficiency, more energy use equals a higher quality of life.

The idea that renewables are associated with sacrifice should go away. Instead, in a number of realistic cases renewables reduce the cost/impact of living a better life.

I am setting aside the war component about which I am sympathetic (people should be cognizant of near term resource limits when they are in/adjacent to war).

[eldaisfish]

Variable energy sources like wind and solar have a cost - a balancing cost that you do not currently pay. If you have solar panels, the grid buys all your energy, whenever you are able to deliver that energy. The rest of us subsidise your costs.

Renewables like domestic solar appear to reduce costs because those costs are socialized. Compare the cost of drawing power from the grid with the cost of generating all your energy via solar PV and storage batteries.

[dpierce9]

Who is the we? Different countries, states, and grid-operators have different policies.

Grid-scale renewables in the US are not ‘take it any time I have it’ to the grid, they are generally required to be able to dispatch down. This means when they are told the addition of those units of power will cause problems the units will be penalized for adding them.

Renewables also pay for interconnection costs, they pay for transmission costs (which pays for transmission equipment), and they pay the grid-operators for operations. To say ‘all their costs are socialized’ borders on dishonest. I am open to there being additional externalities and balancing is a real challenge. But you have to tell me what they are and price them rather than rely on sweeping generalizations which are prima facie false.

[_0w8t]

As the last autumn in Europe showed solar and wind were not stable when for months there were quite heavy clouds without wind. Big energy storage is required.