Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by stinos 982 days ago
Fair enough perhaps, but in any case: please you point us to the numbers for that?

Seeing the annual output of a typcial rather small 5kW peak home PV installation in Western Europe or even Denmark, it just seems unlikely that it would not offset whatever emissions it takes during its mining/production/shipment/installation during its lifetime.
1 comments
hef19898 982 days ago
Helsinki is around, judging from looking at a chart on a phone screen, 20-30% more expensive than Munich per kWh produced using solar.. And still, Helsinki still is cheaper by a factor of roughly 2 than the average spot market kWh prices in 2022.

I linked to the source in one of my other comments. Also, Finland installed a ton of solar lasr year, so I guess if someone is doing sometjing someone else claims is impossible, it is possible regardless of what people say and believe.

link
littlestymaar 982 days ago
> Helsinki is around, judging from looking at a chart on a phone screen, 20-30% more expensive than Munich per kWh produced using solar.. And still, Helsinki still is cheaper by a factor of roughly 2 than the average spot market kWh prices in 2022.

The price doesn't have anything to do with the carbon footprint though…

> Also, Finland installed a ton of solar lasr year, so I guess if someone is doing sometjing someone else claims is impossible, it is possible regardless of what people say and believe.

Sure it is possible to install solar in Finland, if you're a politician and you want to do a PR move it's probably even a good idea, but it's not for producing electricity.

link
hef19898 982 days ago
Solar, once installed, has close to zero CO2 emissions (maintenance being the only source). And it is absolutely possible, and done. Not by politicians, but by people investing in the projects. And those expect, and get, returns. Funny, how otherwise reasonable people insist to argue against reality...

Disclaimer: Obviously, installing PV around the arctic circle is better during summer than winter...

link
littlestymaar 982 days ago
> Solar, once installed, has close to zero CO2 emissions

Thanks for this fabulously insightful take. Here's a similar one: “Coal, once burned, has closed to zero CO2 emissions”. I mean, yes, for sure, but that's a bit strange of an analysis isn't it?

> Not by politicians, but by people investing in the projects.

Well, first of all it is also done by politicians. And then “people investing in the project” is also a common sentence when discussing NFTs so I'm not sure how convincing you think it is.

Each euros that goes to solar in Finland and doesn't get to hydro, wind, biomasse or whatever, is wasted. Wasted in terms of energy production, and have a much bigger carbon footprint per kWh, but hey it's trendy (mostly because it makes total sense in California, the cultural center of the Western world).

> Funny, how otherwise reasonable people insist to argue against reality...

Funny indeed.

link
hef19898 982 days ago
Nobody in Europe installs solar because of California... Strabge idea. As is intentionally misunderstanding the fact that electricity out of coal produces CO2, while PV does not.

And regardless of NFTs, people investing in PV, as opposed to me putting one on my roof, expect returns on said investment. These returns come from selling electricity. Of thos equation isn't working, people don't invest. If it does, people invest. And that is proof that solar works out financially. Even in Finland.

Funny as well, how people use the "market" as argument for anything working, only to turn around and totally ignore it if the market confirms something they don't want to believe.

Reality is, Finland becomes a market for solar, believe it or not. That also being the case for utility scale projects, means it is financially viable. Those arw verifiable facts. Now you can choose to ignore them, or not, I don't care. What I care about is HN turning into a olace where people ignore facts and realizy, just to confirm their points. We can do better around here, because if not, there is no point in sticking around here anymore.

link
littlestymaar 982 days ago
> As is intentionally misunderstanding the fact that electricity out of coal produces CO2, while PV does not.

You're making a fallacy here, that it's either coal or PV. It's not. In tropical and subtropical places, solar make sense, else where you're better off with anything else that's not fossil. In fact, PV is not even a good substitute for coal, because coal plants can't be turned on and off easily twice a day (unlike gas turbines).

> people investing in PV, as opposed to me putting one on my roof, expect returns on said investment. These returns come from selling electricity. Of thos equation isn't working, people don't invest.

People investing in NFTs is a proof that NFTs make economical sense then? People invest because they believe, no matter if those believes are grounded or not, so using the existence of market as a proof of something working in completely self-referential believes confirmation.

> Funny as well, how people use the "market" as argument for anything working, only to turn around and totally ignore it if the market confirms something they don't want to believe.

Funny to see that people use the market as a justification for things working, when we have plenty of evidences of markets for things that made no economic sense (crypto, NFT, tulips, etc.).

> What I care about is HN turning into a olace where people ignore facts and realizy, just to confirm their points. We can do better around here, because if not, there is no point in sticking around here anymore.

Please be the change you want to see in the world then, and stop drinking cool-aid and using rhetorical fallacy instead of arguments…

link