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Scoobz1961 t1_jar2o50 wrote

Reply to comment by 6thReplacementMonkey in Electric world that kicks out fossil fuels will cost less than combustion economy. 30TW of wind and solar PV will take 0.2% of earth's surface. by DisasterousGiraffe

Yeah, no, stop spreading your pseudo conspiracy theories. People like you focus solely on the ecology of the renewables, not the economy and more importantly the power engineering. And make no mistake, this is an issue of power engineering, not ecology.

The problem was, is and for a long time will continue being the transmission and storage of electricity. The price of generation is an issue, but in the opposite direction than you would expect. Low electricity prices are harmful for the grid at the moment as conventional "dirty" powerplants are being closed due to not being economically viable. However we need these powerplants for now to stabilize the grid.

But people who only care about renewable energy dont talk about that. Not only because it goes against their claims, but also because they simply dont know or care about that.

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6thReplacementMonkey t1_jargw2e wrote

> Yeah, no, stop spreading your pseudo conspiracy theories.

It's not a theory, it's documented fact.

> People like you focus solely on the ecology of the renewables, not the economy and more importantly the power engineering.

Tell me more about "people like me" and especially how you know this based on a two-sentence comment on reddit.

> And make no mistake, this is an issue of power engineering, not ecology.

Why would it not be an issue of both? And why wouldn't it include economic factors, public health, public convenience, transportation networks, defense, geopolitics, etc? Why is it just a single issue that you decided is different from the single issue you wrongly assumed that I was focusing on?

> The problem was, is and for a long time will continue being the transmission and storage of electricity.

That's (one of) the engineering problems, yes. There are other problems too.

> The price of generation is an issue, but in the opposite direction than you would expect. Low electricity prices are harmful for the grid at the moment as conventional "dirty" powerplants are being closed due to not being economically viable. However we need these powerplants for now to stabilize the grid.

That's a resource allocation problem.

> But people who only care about renewable energy dont talk about that. Not only because it goes against their claims, but also because they simply dont know or care about that.

Lots more assumptions that are also incorrect.

Anyway, here's the deal: I said "cheaper overall." Draw a big box around the whole problem. Government problems, transportation, engineering, everything. Ask the question: what costs more? Switching to renewables, or not switching? The answer is not switching. The economic costs due to what you are hand-waving away as "ecology" are going to be orders of magnitude greater than all the engineering problems you are fixated on - and we're going to still have to solve those engineering problems, as well as solve a whole bunch of new ones.

This has been true the whole time. It has been true since we first started using fire to lift water. The only thing that has changed over time is our awareness. We couldn't work to solve the problem more efficiently until we understood it. We first started understanding it more than one hundred years ago, and became able to do something about it in the last few decades. Oil companies and those who profit the most from them intentionally worked to reduce the public understanding of the problems specifically because solving them would cause them to be less rich. Not poor - just less rich.

Call that a pseudo conspiracy theory if you want, but it's documented. They did it on purpose.

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Scoobz1961 t1_jarkl35 wrote

>Tell me more about "people like me" and especially how you know this based on a two-sentence comment on reddit.

You are making it sound like I am projecting things onto you instead of stating the obvious fact that you dont care about the economic or power engineering factor. How do I know that? Because you ignored both in your post.

>Why would it not be an issue of both?

Because the way we generate, transmit and store power is literally what power engineering is. The main pillars of power engineering industry has been tasked by the state to ensure the maintenance, development and the stability of the grid. If the grid fails and people die, its their head, not any other departments.

>That's (one of) the engineering problems, yes. There are other problems too.

You just destroyed your previous post here. You went from "its the fault of big corporations" to "oh yeah, there are some engineering issues that prevent it too".

>That's a resource allocation problem.

The economy is resource allocation problem, yes. A very huge obstacle.

>Lots more assumptions that are also incorrect.

I met so many people that share their opinion on renewable energy without knowing anything about power engineering. You among them. I am not assuming. I am certain. You dont know anything about power engineering, if you did you would consider basic engineering challenges and restrictions. And you dont care. If you did, you would learn the basics.

>Draw a big box around the whole problem. Government problems, transportation, engineering, everything. Ask the question: what costs more? Switching to renewables, or not switching? The answer is not switching. The economic costs due to what you are hand-waving away as "ecology" are going to be orders of magnitude greater than all the engineering problems you are fixated on - and we're going to still have to solve those engineering problems, as well as solve a whole bunch of new ones.

No, that is not the answer. You have been fed propaganda from people that are just like you. People who ignore partial problems and make assumptions to make the math look like its works out in favor of renewables. However the main problem is that is not even the question.

Also let me specifically point out your attitude of "there will be problems, but other people can figure those out". This is the problem. The people you want to figure those out are constantly telling you its not viable, but you dont care about that either.

>This has been true the whole time...

That just dumb. But lets focus on the conspiracy theory. You know who likes money? Everybody. If renewable energy were profitable, the people who own oil companies would invest in them. They dont care about oil, the planet or anything. Its about profit.

This is exactly what happened in my country. My government gave solar energy large subsidy. The math was that if few take advantage of that, it wont matter and we will get more renewable sources. For few years nothing happened. Then huge amount of solar powerplants were build in just two years before the state was able to change the subsidy plan. Many of those that owned dirty powerplants went for it. It was free money if you had the capital.

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6thReplacementMonkey t1_jarnmlj wrote

Amazing how much you can infer from what's not there, while ignoring what is there.

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Scoobz1961 t1_jartdul wrote

Thats because nothing is there. You have no idea about how any of this work.

I am absolutely certain that you have a field where you are very knowledgeable and immediately see though BS. But in this case you are the BS in power engineering.

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6thReplacementMonkey t1_jas630m wrote

Mm hmm. What was the BS again?

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Scoobz1961 t1_jasah16 wrote

Everything you claimed about power engineering industry. Most importantly that its cheaper to go renewable and that the reason why we dont is because a conspiracy of presumably oil industry.

The cost to force renewables is astronomical and the reason why we dont go full renewable is because the power engineering industry is not even remotely ready and its economically unviable.

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6thReplacementMonkey t1_jaun26f wrote

Cheaper overall, as in "big picture," including environmental, political, social, health, etc. As I said, and as you apparently missed.

> The cost to force renewables is astronomical

Yes, it is. And the cost of not doing so is even more astronomical.

> and its economically unviable.

Only if you don't look at the big picture. Which you don't.

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Scoobz1961 t1_jav6owg wrote

>As I said, and as you apparently missed.

You didnt say.

>And the cost of not doing so is even more astronomical.

You arent wrong, but its such a childishly naive thing to say. You are pretending the world is united in shared vision and shared responsibility. Power engineering is extremely fractured.

Let me give you the basic problem. The power generation is a private sector. Corporation that build power plants do so for profit. They dont care about earth, health, politics and whatnot. How exactly do you plan on getting them to lose money on their investment? Same thing apply to commercial batteries that we would have to build tons to support renewable power plants. To stress my point further. You are not paying for power plants right now and you dont get a say.

To look at the "big picture" as you say, you had to take a few steps back and your head ended up in clouds. Let me try it. Crime cost us a lot. All the damages, the cost of justice system and police. And above all, the priceless cost of lives. But I think I have a solution. How about we all just stop committing crimes. Wow, that was easy. And its absolutely free. Hurray for the big picture!

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6thReplacementMonkey t1_jay859e wrote

Well you convinced me! I humbly apologize for being so very wrong about everything. Thanks for correcting me, sir!

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Scoobz1961 t1_jb00do0 wrote

I think I actually did. I applaud your idealistic passion, but its met with cold chaotic reality of our society. We could go 100% renewable in a decade or two. There is no doubt about that. Just like we could end wars forever. We just dont have the motivation to do so. Its not just few people. Its all of us.

What we can do and what we are doing is using resources we have available to make the transition possible bit by bit. The renewables are going to win, its almost inevitable. But we have to make sure we are ready for it. An example of what we are doing to rely less on the dirty power plants is we share them with other countries. We are maximizing the utility of those remaining power plants. This is happening right now.

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