Wind power and solar photovoltaics have higher energy returns than fossil fuels

Mark my words, in 20 years all of us will be lamenting those energy policies that will have brought us to third-world style poverty, while frantically learning mandarim to have a chance to migrate to China.

And the really fun part about it, is that we won't even have money to mitigate the effects of climate change, because we literally chased windmills instead of being realistic and pragmatic and investing on sound and proven technologies like nuclear instead of throwing money at intermittent sources that made energy absurdly more expensive in places like Germany, UK and South Australia, all the while dreaming that batteries will be enough to save us.

Of course, the wall street folks and the usual hustlers behind this, they will have already relocated to greener pastures leaving us to pay the bill.

roenxi2• 2 years ago

Yes. We all saw what happened to Germany when they pretended wind/solar was competitive with fossil fuels in the Energiewende. It was a clear step backwards. Countries utilising cheap energy have energy (and electricity) profiles that look like China, not Germany.

The fact that now renewables seem to be honest-to-goodness competitive is big news. If serious people should be investing in renewables which is a huge change in the economic equilibrium.

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

Germany helped drive down renewables costs. Someone had to eat the beginning of the S curve.

Lazy laggards are receiving the benefits of those investments previously made.

https://energytransition.org/2016/01/how-germany-helped-brin...

“The Germans were not really buying power — they were buying a price decline,” Hal Harvey, a US clean energy expert.

ZeroGravitas4• 2 years ago

We all saw what happened to Germany when they pretended wind/solar was competitive with fossil fuels in the Energiewende.

I think you've gone off script.

You're not supposed to state that you think burning dirty coal and imported Russian gas are better than renewables.

Normally people bashing Germany hide behind pretending they're nuclear fans.

fuzzfactor2• 2 years ago

This was well recognized during the energy crisis of the early 1970's.

It took until 1982 but eventually it looked like alternatives to fossil fuel were going to be here to stay.

There wasn't very wide recognition of climate upset, which even now is treated as more of a future boogeyman.

The research was a "little" more urgent since the ongoing financial devastation from having all those dollars diverted to places like Saudi Arabia was continuing to undercut the momentum of nationwide prosperity completely. In real time.

Then one day the price of oil dropped precipitously enough to cause a world-wide "oil recession". Too bad for the oilmen. The rest of the world could breathe a sigh of relief. After years of inflation it was the only thing that ever came down in price, but it was a major one for people across the board. Dead cat bounced for about 5 years but alternative energy was still kicking. Then oil bottomed sufficiently to insure another 20 years bad luck for the oil business. But to them it was completely worth it because it put a stake in the heart of solar and wind.

Higher energy returns is in terms of investment dollars. There will always be a price for crude oil below which wind and solar have lower returns. Just like it was before.

The question is, can OPEC actually reduce the price below that point any more, and sustain it for the amount of time necessary to halt alternative momentum this time?

Seems to me some OPEC types have badly mortgaged their oil dollars to a greater extent than the original sheikhs used to do, so there may not be that much dry powder any more.

The recent agreement to cut back production specifically to drive prices up may be for immediate financial reasons. OTOH once immediate relief has occurred, maybe the floor will be dropped and those who borrowed for alternative purposes will be held underwater long enough to where they can't breathe any more either.

ZeroGravitas4• 2 years ago

One interesting part of this, since the EROI stuff is heavily associated with peak oil doomers as well as anti-renewable cranks, is that the EROI of fossil fuels is slightly increasing by this measure.

This is because the harder to get fossil fuels are being burned in more efficient engines, resulting in more useful work being done for a given energy input to extract them.

Wind power and solar photovoltaics have higher energy returns than fossil fuels

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