
The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet - kickout
http://rameznaam.com/2019/04/02/the-third-phase-of-clean-energy-will-be-the-most-disruptive-yet/
======
chris_va
(disclaimer: I am part of a Climate&Energy research group that does this sort
of economic modeling)

I would say that the author's broad conclusions are actually likely to pan out
(albeit on a different timeline).

However, the individual arguments are cherry picked (e.g. specific utility
decisions that do not generalize) and do not necessarily support the
conclusion. So, please ignore the graphs as just visual candy. Also, their
conclusions around wind are likely incorrect, given the learning curve and
deployment rates for solar vs wind.

Some problems:

\- The author skips over the difference between dispatchable and non-
dispatchable power. The article alludes to it with the discussion of storage,
but the nuances are actually very important.

\- There are graphs comparing solar and coal. Coal is already dying, and not
going to get serious traction by any investors in the future. It is a high
capital, low marginal cost plant with expensive cycling for shutdown/turn-on.
With today's renewables, the variability in grid demand is too high to make it
economical. Even if that wasn't true (which it might not be in the future with
sufficient storage), natural gas is strictly cheaper with fracking, and likely
will be for the next 50 years.

\- The author states that renewables are on the verge of being "cheaper than
the cost of continuing to operate existing coal- or gas-fueled power plants".
They support this argument with some cherry-picked examples. Realistically,
that is not true, nor will it likely every be true. The marginal cost for
natural gas is roughly ~1.8 cents/kWh today (including O&M), though NG is very
cheap right now. With a capacity factor of 25%, solar would have to be
~$0.50/W including ammortized O&M (so call it $0.35/W. With a ~20% learning
curve, that is ~5 doublings from today, so more than net electricity demand).
On top of that, that power is mostly useless without storage, which adds
additional LCOE (e.g. amortized battery capital and RTE derating).

\- Much of the authors argument would require full electrification of
transportation+commercial/residential heating, which is unlikely to really
pick up steam until the 2030s. Industrial heating will likely be the last
holdout (barring some regulatory pressure like a carbon tax).

Anyway, after years of research I would say that I am actually optimistic (I
did not used to be) about renewables+storage with sufficient regulatory
pressure to get us over today's cost hump (e.g. tax credit, RPS, carbon tax,
anything), but take this article with a grain of salt.

Edit: I should say that NG prices vary dramatically by location, and Europe
will likely see a very different path forward than the rest of the planet
(they also get to cheat with storage with the Norwegian Fjords), so they may
push us down the learning curve significantly faster than the US/Asian market.
China seems to be doing things by fiat, too, which is always handy.

~~~
chocolatebunny
How do you do industrial heating without natural gas? Last I heard heating
with electricity was ridiculously expensive.

~~~
benj111
Define industrial heating?

Low grade heat can be got from heat pumps. It can be topped up to a higher
temperature with resistive heating.

You can also lower demand for heat with heat exchangers, insulation and such.

So a chemical process that required 50c would be fairly easy to do. Smelting
metals gets harder.

~~~
edejong
That's an interesting topic. I wonder if the cooling down of steel in a steel
mill can be used to increase the temperature of the smelting pots.

~~~
bigger_cheese
For an integrated Steel mill most of the heat comes from chemical energy (i.e
exothermic reactions).

In the blast furnace this comes from Coke, in BOS/LD Converter alloys such as
ferrosilicon or silicon carbide "heat raisers" can be used to increase the
temperature.

Modern plants have things like cogeneration and recovery turbines to produce
electricity from the off gas.

Biggest electricity usage tends to be from things like extraction fans and
conveyor belt motors.

~~~
jabl
If we're going to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, we'll probably have to
replace blast furnaces with something like hydrogen direct reduction, which
needs boatloads of electricity to produce the hydrogen.

------
acidburnNSA
These trends are excellent and impressive.

> But these problems are distant. Renewables will start to encounter them in
> earnest when solar makes up >20-30% of electricity and when wind makes up
> >40-50% of electricity. Today, worldwide, solar is only 2% and wind is only
> perhaps 6% of global electricity. Cheap multi-hour storage will arrive
> before that (indeed, in the next few years), lowering the price of using
> solar to meet the evening peak, and of dealing with intermittency on the
> order of minutes to several hours. Only seasonal storage (and perhaps the
> political challenges of long-range transmission) seem to be truly difficult
> problems. And we have time before they begin to impair the growth of
> renewables.

This is where things get hard. Besides electricity, we also have to clean up
all transportation, industrial, and space heating. This isn't so distant in an
energy systems perspective. This is where having things like nuclear power
plants with district heating will likely be important.

Until then, it's great to see wind and solar performing so excellently.

I still can't believe San Bernardino county already NIMBY-banned more large
solar installations in the California deserts.

~~~
DontGiveTwoFlux
With electricity going towards renewables, it seems clear that the best
strategy will be to get the other major uses of energy on electricity as well.

Vehicles have a clear (if long) path to electrification. But what about
heating buildings? My understanding is that electric heating is not cost
effective compared to carbon based fuels. Lower costs driven by renewables can
help here, but will it be enough? Are there alternatives being developed to
tackle this major energy use?

~~~
acidburnNSA
30-50% of electricity is going to renewables, and how. Above that,
intermittency and storage is significantly challenging.

Don't forget jets. Jets are mega-emitters and have very few electrification
options because lithium-ion has about a 50th the energy per mass as jet fuel.

For heating, cheap, fracked natural gas is dominating in the US, with a battle
cry of "better than coal"! Unfortunately it's still extremely high carbon.
They do amazing PR though.

China is building a few supercheap swimming pool TRIGA nuclear reactors
specifically for district heating in northern regions for winter, where coal
is the only alternative. This is wild, but makes sense. They aren't usually
used commercially because the temperatures are too low for conversion to
electricity. But for straight heat it makes plenty of sense.

Also heat pumps can help but won't get you there alone.

~~~
tachyonbeam
Could we power airplanes with ethanol? I've heard that we couldn't
realistically grown enough corn/canes to produce ethanol for all cars, but if
cars are electric, could we potentially produce enough ethanol for airplanes?

If we can't make enough ethanol for all air travel, I'm still optimistic. It's
likely that battery densities will become good enough for us to have
electrically powered regional jets within the next decade. Then only long
flights would need liquid fuels. As a last option, we could also switch to
high-speed trains for continental travel.

~~~
i_am_proteus
Piston-engined aircraft, which are basically just light general aviation
aircraft, can and have used ethanol.

Most commercial aircraft use jet engines. Other biofuels that are chemically
closer to kerosene can be used in most existing jet engines _in blends_ ; use
of 100% biofuels for hasn't been extensively tested-- but it has been
tested![0] This is also the highest-hanging fruit and I wouldn't worry about
it in 2019.

[0][https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=96702](https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=96702)

~~~
ams6110
Turbine engines in theory can run on almost any flammable liquid. However in
practice they would need substantial re-engineering. Also ethanol is less
energy-dense than kerosene/jet fuel.

------
Reedx
Solar & wind are great, but no mention of nuclear? (look into Gen IV if
concerned about nuclear's reputation)

That's looking like what we need most of all if we want to _seriously_ tackle
the problem.

If you're wondering why, Bill Gates argues a good case on why solar & wind are
not enough:
[https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=518](https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=518)

~~~
gehsty
Any reason storage + renewables + well connected ‘super grids’ between
countries cannot work out? Why do we have to have nuclear?

~~~
godelski
> Why do we have to have nuclear?

It's a good question. Really.

The reason why is that __current __renewable tech cannot handle our energy
needs. Technology for a "well connected `super grid'" just doesn't exist
either. The battery tech isn't there.

But don't just believe me. Look at Germany[0]. Many point to it as the leading
example of adapting renewable technology. They have some huge advantages
places like the US, India, and China don't have: being small and more dense.
This means you can have less power loss in transit (theoretically). But you
have to ask yourself, why is Germany's use of renewables skyrocketing but
their carbon footprint is relatively stationary? Hint: What are they replacing
their nuclear with? It isn't __just __renewables, and there 's a reason why.

Remember, no pro nuclear person is anti renewable. We just believe we need to
act __NOW __and not when renewables become advanced enough. Personally I just
don 't think we have the time.

Edit: Wanted to share a link I was sharing in another thread. France, which
has about 75% of its energy produced from nuclear also has one of the cheapest
electricity costs in Europe. [1]

[0] [https://www.worlddata.info/europe/germany/energy-
consumption...](https://www.worlddata.info/europe/germany/energy-
consumption.php)

[1] [https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
pr...](https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx)

~~~
Faark
Of cause the carbon footprint is stationary, since both nuclear and renewable
are good on that front. Replacing nuclear with coal wouldn't be stationary and
graphs [0] look like renewable has decently taken over former nuclear. I don't
understand where you see something not working. I do understand nuclear
advocates arguing the carbon footprint could be even better.

Also keep in mind some rural areas fighting tooth and nails to keep brown coal
use/mining running, since these areas don't have much other economic
prospects.

[0] [https://energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-
sources&perio...](https://energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-
sources&period=annual&year=all)

~~~
godelski
My issue is that the reason to switch to renewables is to reduce your carbon
footprint. If you aren't reducing your footprint, why are you investing that
money?

I should rephrase my statement. They are replacing nuclear with coal AND
renewables. But to me the better strategy is to replace coal with renewables
first. Then you can reduce your nuclear production. Get to the problem.

The priority should be to reduce the carbon footprint.

~~~
jabl
> The priority should be to reduce the carbon footprint.

This. After you reach carbon neutrality (or realistically, we're gonna need
negative emissions), fine, go ahead and replace those pesky nuclear plants
with hamster wheel power, for all I care.

~~~
Faark
No, reducing carbon footprint is not the only priority. It is an important
one, but doesn't top everything else. I don't want emergency responders
driving slowly just because its for the environment.

Nuclear, especially the waste management, was an another priority here in
Germany. Apparently a priority our politicians (and industry) were unable to
solve satisfyingly in another way. So they took the opportunity and boldly
went against nuclear, even if overall results won't perfect immediately. Just
like they decided to do that plan pushing renewable energy regardless of how
imperfect (how crazy is doing solar that far up north?!) and eventually helped
jump-start the solar and wind industry for everyone else to benefit from.

But i do understand nuclear enthusiasts having different views/priorities, so
we'll probably never agree.

~~~
godelski
> Nuclear, especially the waste management

I think there's a big misunderstanding of waste that the public has. Even
though it is toxic and radioactive the amount of waste matters. For example,
if I throw out a coke can of the most toxic stuff on the planet yearly or
throw out train loads of waste daily. That's really the comparison we're
making with nuclear waste and coal waste. I always get a little ticked off
when people ask "what do you do with the waste" because the answer is the same
with what you do with coal waste. You bury it. But in this case we have to
bury a lot less material (and remember, coal waste is also radioactive and
toxic). Even though there is a danger issue difference, let's call it two
orders of magnitude, there's a huge difference in scale (>>2 orders of
magnitude). Frankly, that matters.

Some side notes:

In France ~15% of their total power comes just from recycled nuclear waste
(remember, their entire grid is ~75% nuclear and they have one of the lowest
carbon footprints).

Not all nuclear "waste" is waste. A lot gets used in things like medicine and
a bunch of sciences.

------
ctdonath
I never see intermittency addressed sufficiently. Early this year, I noted the
US was almost entirely covered with clouds for a week. Will these renewables
really have enough battery (or other) storage capacity for prolonged
solar/wind insufficiency? There's a lot of "well, with _enough_ batteries or
smart grids..." but not enough even back-of-napkin calculations for what such
cases would require, likely cost, and consequences of outlier environmental
happenings.

It's easy/cheap to pile up coal, or fill giant buckets with oil, but batteries
are _expensive_ .

~~~
m_fayer
You can have a few coal or gas plants on standby for those rate occasions when
reserves are insufficient.

~~~
ctdonath
Problem is you need enough "on standby" to run full-output indefinitely ... at
a cost high enough that you may as well just use them instead of unreliable
renewables.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for renewables. Run my office near 100% on solar
in summer, and run my home partly on year-round. My experience convinces me
that while it's nice/fun/clean/etc, it's also painfully unreliable. People
talking about renewables while living on coal/etc energy don't seem to grasp
this.

~~~
cesarb
> Problem is you need enough "on standby" to run full-output indefinitely ...
> at a cost high enough that you may as well just use them instead of
> unreliable renewables.

There are two components to the cost of a generator: fixed costs and variable
costs, the later being mostly fuel. Even if you have enough standby generators
and could run them all the time, if the "unreliable renewables" allow you to
reduce their power (using less fuel) or even power some of them down
completely, it can be a huge cost advantage.

It's even better if you add a bit of storage to the mix: since most generators
can't power up instantly, with enough storage they could all be completely
powered off instead of idling, saving even more fuel and wear.

------
arcturus17
I'm completely ignorant about this field, but I've heard Bill Gates and others
say there are many problems with clean energy, such as land-efficiency
(particularly in the case of solar), of course storage, etc.

What might be some counterpoints to these objections?

~~~
zanny
Storage at nation-state levels is largely solved by pump-storage hydro[1].
Yes, its expensive, especially if you lack natural reservoirs to convert into
pump basins, but the economics of it are well known, the technology is mature,
and implementations already exist. The real barrier is the chicken and egg
problem that until there is urgent need for such storage it won't be built and
building it will be time consuming and centralized-cost expensive to do.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-
storage_hydroelectricity)

~~~
kristianp
That's only where a mountainous area is close enough. There are limits to how
far transmission losses allow you to go.

~~~
cesarb
> There are limits to how far transmission losses allow you to go.

These limits are higher than you might think. The currently longest HVDC link
in Brazil
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Madeira_HVDC_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Madeira_HVDC_system))
is 2300 km; there is another one being built that will be over 2500 km. For
comparison, a quick web search tells me that the "width" of the USA (from the
east coast to the west coast) is only 4500 km.

------
rcMgD2BwE72F
No mention of possible resistance from fossil fuels interests? They have
trillions of $ of assets to defend, so I would expect some unconventional
methods to prevent renewable from growing quickly: buy some media, disrupt
elections, promote FUD, get some big countries into war (an autocracy like
Saudi Arabia certainly have this capability, or Russia since its regime also
massively relies on gas to keep its economy afloat), etc.

Energy is not just about cost, it's a huge power that can make and destroy
countries and empires. They will certainly not die without a fight.

~~~
nestorD
Watching the following TED talk, I was surprised to discover that gas compagny
such as Total are actually promoting renewable energies because they currently
need to be complemented and gas is the main solution used for that purpose.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w)

------
vermilingua
Forgive me if this is an utterly ignorant question, or already answered: but
with the plan to make 40-50% of power wind-based, is there any potential
impact on the environment? Intuition tells me that if wind is able to generate
so much power, the energy is coming from somewhere.

For solar, the power is coming from “waste” energy from the sun, but wind
takes all its energy from the natural activity of our climate, which is more
or less a closed system is it not?

If we’re extracting all this energy from our weather systems, could we not in
theory cause some major disruption?

~~~
opportune
It's not a closed system, the wind patterns on the earth are due to heat
differentials which are constantly being created due to... the sun. You can
think of it as a way of harvesting more concentrated solar energy

~~~
vermilingua
If that were true, wouldn’t the weather get progressively more energetic over
time? Wouldn’t we now be living with constant planetoids storms?

~~~
opportune
No, because the friction between the air and itself/the rest of the planet
slows down the winds and dissipates the energy as heat

~~~
vermilingua
Aaahh, I see; thanks.

Also, *planetary.

------
4thaccount
The part about renewables suppressing prices is already and has been a thing
for awhile. We even see $0 prices in some market intervals because wind is so
highly subsidized. This causes some issues as the market prices don't reflect
the actual need.

~~~
ip26
You don't need subsidies for the price to hit $0. The power must be removed
from the grid.

~~~
4thaccount
That is not true. Where are you getting this from? Maybe I misunderstand you.
Low prices generally come from when you have a very low marginal price (often
because a windfarm can put in a $0 offer and still make a profit due to
subsidies). Note that I'm not against the production tax credits, but the
market distortions are very real and can impact decisions to build more
generation.

~~~
ip26
In addition to the other replies to you, my understanding- low prices come
from a glut, simple as that. If the wind is blowing strongly at night, or the
sun is shining especially brightly, there can be an excess of power, so much
that there isn't enough demand to remove that power from the grid (which would
damage it).

Fossil fuels have input costs, but wind & solar have zero or nearly zero
operating cost, and shutting them down _incurs_ cost. So while fossil fuel is
hurting, they are happy to sell power for $0 for a few hours if that's what it
takes to get someone to take it off their hands.

IMO it basically looks like what you'd expect to see in a market in need of
storage operations to perform arbitrage & smooth the price curve.

~~~
Symmetry
Or someone who has some power intensive but not capital intensive project
ready to go for when electricity is cheap. Splitting water for future
generation of ammonia or methane, say.

~~~
aidenn0
Aluminum smelting is the poster child for this; ~14MWh per ton of aluminum
produced; managing electricity costs is the primary business of Alcoa.

------
hairytrog
It's too bad they don't include post-use decomissioning/recycling costs. There
is some really toxic crap in there Nuclear has to, so should solar.

They also forget that renewables are not that versatile and only address a
small part of the big 4 carbon emitters (grid, industrial, cargo, cows).
Industrial and cargo transport are going to require nuclear heat sources.

So while it's great that costs are coming down, they are not are not reporting
the full cost, and it's only a partial solution to the big energy problems.

~~~
Brakenshire
Toxic crap in solar? For silicon panels, which are the vast majority of the
market, what specifically is toxic in the panel itself?

I can only think of lead in solder, which is the same issue for all electronic
devices.

There are toxic chemicals used in the processes for making the panel, which
need proper environmental regulation, but that doesn’t mean the panel itself
contains toxic materials.

~~~
jhayward
There is one major manufacturer (First Solar) that makes CIGS [edit: should
read 'CdTe'] thin-film panels which do have Cd, etc and need a waste
management strategy. I believe First Solar guarantees waste recovery for their
panels [1].

But you are correct, the vast majority of panels are silicon-based and have no
significant environmental disposal issues. Leaded solder use is already quite
low and is targeted for zero content in the near future.

[1] [http://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-
Solar/Sustainability...](http://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-
Solar/Sustainability-Documents/Recycling/First-Solar-Recycling-Datasheet.ashx)

~~~
Brakenshire
I agree with your post in general, but as far as I know First Solar make CdTe
panels, not CIGS.

~~~
jhayward
Right, thanks for the correction.

------
throw3355666
The article mentions a utility in Northern Indiana and references a public
presentation made last year that outlined various scenarios and chose a
preferred path forward.

If you go to that utility's website, you'll see that they adopted the scenario
of decommissioning 4 coal-fired generation units by 2023 and a 5th by 2028.
They've begun the decommissioning process (apparently it takes a long time)
and have a press release from February of this year announcing the signing of
agreements for the construction of 3 wind farms totaling ~800MW.

------
tmaly
Battery and storage technology is still the limiting factor in broad adoption
of clean energy.

We need a Manhattan project for storage technology is we will every realize
the conclusions in this post.

------
Sam_PFS
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Cheers, Sam

------
tntn
See also [https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-
gnd-b8d...](https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-
gnd-b8ddd569de16).

Saul Griffith + Otherlab estimate that electrifying the US will reduce the
total energy needs by 50+% as a result of reduced waste (among other reasons).

------
chkaloon
The headwinds mentioned should also include NIMBY. If you've ever driven
through western Minnesota and the turbine forest that is out there, you'll
realize there there is the potential for serious blowback if onshore turbine
installation gets more widespread.

I just hope that less intrusive alternatives become more prevalent before that
blowback causes a price increase that makes fossil fuels look good again.

~~~
beat
I haven't seen serious blowback on our wind farms, and I live in MN. It's
generally well embraced by the vast majority of the public and the political
system.

~~~
chkaloon
That's good for now. I live in WI and the blowback is rising. I'm guessing one
reason for that is because of the low population density there. Once they
start creeping into more dense areas, or less dense but more ecologically
sensitive areas, it could get interesting.

Also MN is a pretty blue state. I seem to remember that as soon as you crossed
the red SD line, the forest vanished. Maybe that will change, but it's
definitely a potential headwind.

~~~
beat
It's not so much red vs blue as state policy. Iowa has even more wind power
than MN, and it's a lot more red. SD is definitely backwards in that regard.

edit: Correcting myself, SD is getting 30% of its electricity from wind now.
There's fewer towers because of a smaller population.

~~~
chkaloon
So, it's a non issue? Nothing to worry about?

[https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2017/12/14/communities-
fight...](https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2017/12/14/communities-fight-wind-
farms-face-pushback)

[https://www.thelocal.fr/20180807/why-do-some-people-in-
franc...](https://www.thelocal.fr/20180807/why-do-some-people-in-france-hate-
wind-farms-so-much)

[https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/al-maiorino/just-
how...](https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/al-maiorino/just-how-
widespread-is-wind-farm-opposition-20190312)

------
browsercoin2019
Will there ever be a solar panel that is so powerful it will just run s device
all day? This would require a huge amount of storage of power.

I saw an HN article the other day about an American University developing
paper thin batteries with superior power storage.

We are truly headed for a major leap towards being independent from non
renewable sources of energy

------
kumarski
Did a quick reply to his weak assertions and claims.

[https://twitter.com/datarade/status/1113535596108992512](https://twitter.com/datarade/status/1113535596108992512)

Ramez is much like Kurzweil, desperately needs to open a chemistry book.

------
lixtra
> replace virtually all of that coal power with a mix of solar, wind, storage,
> and flexible demand

In the linked document I did not find any guarantees how flexible the demand
has to be in worst case. It’s easy to run on renewables when you can just shut
down everything.

~~~
Dumblydorr
It's not just shutting down everything, you can shift heating and cooling and
battery charging loads to renewable rich times. Its economically incentivized
to do so as renewables can drastically reduce wholesale prices at those times.

------
AtlasBarfed
Eh, I didn't see any substantive treatment of one of the most disruptive
aspects of solar: personal power generation that brings over-100% independence
from the grid and can power local grids with surplus.

~~~
wmf
Virtually all residential solar installations today cannot function without
the grid and would require much more expensive equipment to do so. It's not
clear why that would change.

------
orwin
This is a really, really good news. However i really don't like the fact that
again we talk that much about PV solar energy. As utility, spot electricity
generator, they are fine (and way more effective than thermal), but as far as
solar farm are concerned, we should lobby for thermal if the water supply
allows it.

~~~
mac01021
> we should lobby for thermal if the water supply allows it

Why?

------
stcredzero
_Error establishing a database connection_

~~~
superkuh
Yup. Here's a mirror for anyone else looking:
[http://archive.is/ATJXq](http://archive.is/ATJXq)

~~~
kristianp
Or via a proxy if you're in Australia, as archive.is is blocked.

------
clomond
> Finally, there will in fact be a Phase 4 of renewables, when their
> penetration has grown so high that they become limited by headwinds of their
> own creation: Value deflation

I hold the opinion that this "Phase 4" \- or a relative slowdown in momentum
of renewables is unlikely to ever occur for a sustained period of time (i.e.
more than 2-5 years). Rather, I view value deflation as more of a resistance
or "constant headwind" that, you could argue we even have today.

There are a few reasons I hold the opinion that this "Phase" will never
actually become a phase:

\- On the value deflation curve, where "energy" at certain times of day
decreases in value as more solar is installed in a particular market that
"can't be used" \- batteries (or any kind of dispatchable energy storage)
results in a "shifting up" of the curve. If for example a market had enough
dispatchable energy storage to meet 10% of a grid's needs, energy deflation
dynamics only start to kick in once demand exceeds the energy that can be
stored (similar to the situation we have today)

\- Value deflation (or moments where there is zero cost energy, negative
electricity prices etc) is a market signal for "here is some free energy" or
"I will pay you to take this off my hands". If you believe in markets, and
innovations that emerge to capture value - I see technologies and businesses
in due time stepping in place to take advantage of this underutilized value.
We as humans are pretty good at finding ways to consume and use energy -
particularly if it is nearly free. Large volumes of "low cost" energy could be
used in multitudes of applications - think: desalination of large volumes of
water, cleaning of water via reverse osmosis, hydrogen production for
transportation or fertilizer production, operating most industrial
applications etc.

\- Given the above, and general political and market pressures developing over
time to electrify and transition all uses of energy to become carbon free
(industrial, transportation, etc) to lower carbon sources, I think you are
doing the analysis injustice if you are only looking at the electricity sector
(assuming you are looking on the decades timescale, which this author is).
Energy is energy and can be transformed from one form to the other. If it is
cheap enough in one form, that transformation can in situations become
economical.

Regardless, I think it is a very exciting time and it will be interesting to
see how things unfold. I am aware that there is a sizeable camp of
analysts/experts out there that strongly believe in the value deflation risk -
but I am a little more optimistic than most regarding the power of markets and
human ingenuity. For anyone interested in the topic, I encourage you to do
research on the value deflation of solar/wind.

------
jillesvangurp
Lots of arguments in this thread. Yet, there are few that are missing that I
would like to add my two cents to.

1) People keep pointing out the need for batteries and yet keep forgetting
that battery production is ramping up exponentially over the next few years
because of EVs. Vehicle to grid power is technically feasible, obvious, and
well on its way to becoming a thing in many places. So, EVs are not a problem
but actually part of the solution here. Yes, EVs use a lot of power when they
are charging and they use some of that power when they are driving. But most
of the time they are not driving and plugged in to the grid. This means that
lots of people switching to EVs in the next two decades is going to result in
plenty of battery capacity that is already plugged into the grid that can
absorb lots of the excess power generated during the day. It won't be enough
by itself but it's a big factor.

2) The article is about grid solar and wind. However, lots of house holds are
now technically capable of going completely off grid with privately operated
solar and wind + batteries. In some places people already do this and in some
places they even do it without subsidies. This is only going to get more
affordable and common over the next few decades. Ironically the biggest factor
slowing this down is not technology but legislation and the de-facto exclusive
monopolies of existing energy players in a lot of markets. E.g. the US energy
market is closer to a communist planned economy than anything resembling a
free market right now: expensive, inefficient, and stupid. IMHO that is
something that can be fixed quite easily and price pressure will make this a
popular demand and basically irresistible for politicians to act on. I doubt
this will survive decades in its current sorry state.

3) The key argument that Ramez Naam makes is about economies of scale driving
prices down. This is true for clean energy and will continue to be true for
some time as technology improves. You can bicker about the time lines of
course but a 2-3 factor price drop is purely a question of when rather than if
and there may very well be more in stock beyond that (5x, 10x, 20x?). IMHO
we've seen nothing yet. It's worth noting that a lot of studies on this in the
past have been systematically pessimistic on price levels and efficiency. E.g.
a lot of coal plants are shutting down prematurely precisely because the
economic studies that convinced their investors that was a good investment
years ago were flat-out wrong by magnitudes. The current prices for clean
energy are nowhere near as high as what people commonly believed would be the
case even ten years ago. IMHO the combination of growing demand and the
obvious VC investments at scale in this area are going to continue to yield
results for decades/centuries to come.

4) Likewise, economies of scale provide little more benefit for non clean
power solutions. Nuclear, coal and gas are not going to get massively cheaper
in the next few decades and the latter two are arguably at risk of actually
getting (much) more expensive as carbon taxation is becoming more of a thing
and state subsidies for coal, oil, and gas are becoming much less of a thing
at the same time their primarily fuel is actually getting scarcer. Also, price
volatility for oil and gas is already a problem. Especially oil is going up
and down like crazy. You can't do reliable price projections for even a few
years ahead. Right now it seems world+dog is dumping oil thus depressing
prices. But perhaps this is in anticipation of easy sources running out and
demand collapsing: better to sell now at a low price while you still can. If
it was a safe investment, people would be waiting for demand and prices to go
up. That's not what's happening. Peak oil and coal is already in the past
according to some and investors are already acting accordingly and they are
primarily greed driven. Clean energy only has the 'problem' of getting
massively cheaper than it is right now at a somewhat unpredictable pace for
decades to come. Maybe someone will figure out fusion at some point. For that
to be feasible, it will need to be cost effective with clean energy. I believe
it is possible but might not happen until next century.

5) Batteries and grid are not the only way to use (excess) clean energy.
Having cheap electricity means that you can do interesting things like
desalinate seawater and store the resulting drinking water or use it for
agriculture. You can also use it to generate all kinds of fuels from air and
water. IMHO a potentially disruptive thing is the notion of actually
generating methane and other carbon based fuels from basically air and water.
Right now this is stuff that is feasible in labs and mostly not very
practical, just yet. However, imagine this becoming actually cheaper than
pumping oil out of the arctic, shipping it halfway across the planet, refining
it, trucking it to your favorite petrol filling station, etc. The point I'm
trying to make here is that excess energy has plenty of useful applications
and is an opportunity rather than a problem. IMHO the vast majority of energy
we generate in a few decades or so may not be for grid usage but this type of
applications. We might still be burning diesel or gas in a century but I doubt
it will be of the fossil variety.

6) The transport sector is electrifying. Ships already run of generators (see
point 5) and increasingly also using batteries. Cars, trucks, buses etc. are
well on their way of becoming EV only. Even short haul flight is likely to
become electric in the next few decades (fuel cells & batteries). Most of that
energy is going to come directly or indirectly from on site solar/wind. If you
are going to be charging vehicles at an industrial scale, clean energy is what
you will invest in to do it as cheap as you can. Buying it from a last century
grid connected dinosaur plant burning oil/gas/coal from the Jurassic era
(apologies for the bad pun), is not even close to being a plan. This is a cut
throat business with super thin margins that is completely dominated by fuel
cost. Clean energy is going to have insane cost effects here and anything that
can't keep up will be out of business in a few decades.

------
jayalpha
"tl;dr: Building new solar, wind, and storage is about to be cheaper than
operating existing coal and gas power plants. That will change everything."

Yeah, right Ramez.

Galactic-Scale Energy [https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-
energy](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy)

~~~
philwelch
> "Let me restate that important point. No matter what the technology, a
> sustained 2.3% energy growth rate would require us to produce as much energy
> as the entire sun within 1400 years."

1400 years seems like a perfectly reasonable timeframe to develop into a
Kardashev II civilization.

------
effnorwood
It won’t unless it’s nuclear.

