it can't be used to create false scarcity! is isn't massively volatile, how are the ultra wealthy going to make absurd amount of money off it?
difficult to justify invading other countries though for their solar, that's why we need to stay on oil, to prop up defence industries and provide education pathways for the poor /s
i guess you could argue too much sun falls on Iran ?
This is a climate group though and yet the economic arguments in some of these comments are bordering on insane :(
angry German energy minister noises
good time to plug the technology connections video
How do I vote him in as president?
We need a fricken youtuber to say what the bought and paid for media is too afraid and cowardly to say. Why can we not have someone like this as a politician! Well, because he's actually smart, he wouldn't take that job.
When is it ever a bad time?
And with battery prices falling, the intermittency issues that made LNG useful despite the drawbacks is gradually becoming much less of a problem too.
Not a fair comparison.
In a nutshell, you can't directly replace gas power with electric power. Gotta have some sort of conversion. Gas is very portable and offers big bang. Solar generally needs to be generated on demand or stored. Then it needs to be transported. We can't transport the solar power from Texas to Michigan the same way we can truck gas across state lines. The longer an electric line, the more power is lost.
Another issue with this graphic is that it implies that solar panels are a one-time expense. This isn't true. They generally last about 20 years.
I'm a champion of green energy, but a stickler for details.
Solar panels are easily recyclable as are a lot of batteries once infrastructure catches up. You burn that gas and its gone.
Millions of acres are used for corn to produce ethanol mixes for gas. All of this land is under direct sun. Also wind. This again is because of corn subsidies in the US.
The amount of money tied up in oil companies is second only to the military industrial complex. If we took that money to put toward renewable, we would solve a shit ton of issues.
Yes voltage drop exists. However , you know we have electrical lines to basically every structure in the US right? Even Joe blow in the absolute middle of nowhere has power lines. The grid is already here. We need to invest in it and improve it (also destroy data centers but thats a different discussion)
Also, panels dont just abruptly die after 20 years. They slowly start losing efficiency. You could be using a 30 year old panel, and it could be at 70% efficiency depending on degradation (*I can't say if 70% is accurate , I'd have to research it). Again, gas is burned up and used instantly, one time. Panel gets old, recycle it.
But we don't do things because they're good. We do them because they're profitable. Capitalism breeds innovation right?
We can't transport the solar power from Texas to Michigan the same way we can truck gas across state lines.
Batteries?
Also this is goofy. Panels aren't centralized. You could have tons of panels and wind in Michigan. You wouldn't transmit Texas power that far unless you really had to, and there's still ways to do it if you needed
I had Google help me out with this one. For illustrative purposes, let's take the Tesla Semi (an electric commercial truck) battery. You could transport about 4 MWh worth of electricity. That's about 4 months worth of electricity for an average American household. Here's the details:
A single Tesla Semi utilizes an estimated 850 kWh to 1,000 kWh battery pack, which weighs approximately 10,000 to 12,000 lbs. If a trailer were filled strictly with these large, fully integrated packs rather than smaller, individual battery cells, only about 4 to 6 of these high-capacity, 1-megawatt-hour systems could physically fit within the weight limits of a standard trailer.
Battery Capacity & Weight: The Semi uses roughly 1 MWh, which consists of four, high-capacity, smaller packs.
Total Weight: A full 1 MWh pack weighs between 10,000 lbs (4,570 kg) and 12,000 lbs.
Capacity Limit: Due to weight restrictions of 80,000 lbs for a loaded semi (with a 2,000 lb increase for EVs), you cannot simply load 80,000 lbs of batteries into a trailer.
Physical Space: While the trailer has massive volume, the 10,000+ lb per pack weight means the trailer would reach its weight limit long before it is full of, say, Model S packs (if that was the method).
Now compare that to high voltage power lines if you're interested. "HVDC transmission losses are quoted at 3.5% per 1,000 km (620 mi)" (Wikipedia)
Then use the next $100M for developing energy storage infrastructure... Or split the upfront cost evenly between generation/storage. Gotta think longer term than a single years's balance sheet. Anything you build now saves you money in the future instead of shoveling it into a literal incinerator.
Woah there you socialist, we only care about next quarter profits here !
/s
Then as a stickler you should probably clarify that 20yrs isn’t the lifespan of a panel but the simply the end of most warranty periods.
The panel itself is (typically) fine, just less efficient after so long.
The beauty of solar though is its pretty deployable to where the demand is, especially rooftop solar with residential batteries.
There are other expenses and location also plays a big role, but it is certainly true that solar is much cheaper when all is said and done. Hence why the energy transition continues in the US even without subsidies.
And this is 2024 numbers. Gas is more expensive now that the strait of Hormuz is closed for a good long time
This is dead wrong (edit: kind of; see below). The dollars per million BTU for natural gas this February was $3.62, or 32% of the figure cited in the infographic. You're thinking of oil.
Solar is clearly more sustainable, economical, independent, and most importantly livable than LNG, but I still need to call out flawed assumptions on my side where I see them.
Edit: I actually have no idea how this infographic reached its $11 assumption. Wholesale prices for natural gas were $4.88 per MMBtu in 2024. Emphasis on "wholesale", but since this infographic doesn't deign to cite any sources other than "Ember" (this Ember?), I have no idea what figure it means.
Edit 2: After doing way too much digging into how global LNG prices are measured because this infographic barely even leaves breadcrumbs, they might've been using a metric like the JKMc1 ("LNG Japan/Korea Marker PLATTS Future") (edit 3: or the TFAc1). The prices of natural gas (transported via pipeline) and LNG (transported via ship) are going to be quite different, and there's no consistent "global average price" for LNG. The best you can really do is use some sort of proxy, for which it appears the JKMc1 is a reasonable one for reasons I don't fully understand yet. That was approximately $11 in 2024 (it was actually seemingly higher, but close enough; probably close but separate figures) and was $10.73 this February. It was $15.92 March 1, showing at least in East Asia that LNG is about 50% more expensive than last month. I don't know how well that applies to Lemmy's predominantly American and European userbase, however (well, I know the US now supplies about 60% of Europe's LNG and that American natural gas is currently cheaper).
God, it's so frustrating that this infographic barely cites anything. Anyway, to the person I responded to: you were at least somewhat right; the closing of the Strait seems to have clearly impacted East Asia... somehow. Iran and Qatar are the 3rd and 6th largest natural gas producers, respectively (no clue about LNG shipments), but I feel like I'll end up with a doctoral thesis on the geopolitics of LNG prices by 2030 from knowing basically nothing if I don't stop here. What all this does tell me is that an estimate of "global average price for LNG" means very little when prices per MMBtu (liquified or otherwise) seem to vary so heavily by region.
What do the lobbyists get out of the solar panels? How do the solar panels generate constant fees?
It is blatantly not motivated by the economy (except the few vested interests).
It is mostly about power.
Ok ok this might work but one question, can we mine solar panels out if the ground in the middle east?
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
