147 sats \ 2 replies \ @gnilma 23 Oct 2023 \ parent \ on: Meta Econ Takeover Day 6 meta
Talk about saving the environment with solar panels and windmills... It is as if solar panel and windmill raw materials grew on trees and their manufacturing process powered by pixie dust and unicorn poop.
Also, being cheap has nothing to do with being reliable. I don't know about you, but I want my electricity when I want it, aka on demand. I'm willing to pay extra for that.
In case you have not noticed, I would like to point out that humanity had improved their quality of life through history by using more energy and by moving to denser forms of energy. To me, the next logical step from here is nuclear energy. Spending resources on solar and wind is just going backwards. Solar and wind can ever only be, in the best case, a supplementary form of energy generation due to their unreliable generation; and in the worst case, a waste of resources and a huge misallocation of capital due to government subsidies.
This is the point I was raising about selection bias. The measurements for cost of solar (and wind) are under near optimal conditions, because they are only installed in places that are best suited for them.
Even then, they don't provide baseload power (intermittency) and they aren't clearly cheaper than conventional energy sources.
Also, the point about environmental impact of producing wind and solar is spot on, especially if you bring EV's into the discussion.
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I agree on nuclear. It is very good, but also expensive. We were speaking about costs.
And it can take up to a decade to build a new nuclear plant.
New nuclear technologies of small reactors are being done and it is promising.
And fusion investigation keeps advancing too but it is still many years away.
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