this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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Solar makes more power, for less money, than coal, while employing more people locally. There's just no argument for more fossil fuels.
Solar and wind are cheap energy fuels that are harder to profit when they scale. They need transmission to offload energy gluts to other places. Glut energy provides no incentive for energy developers to build more power plants. This is why you don't shut down nuclear power plants, because nuclear energy is consistent base energy.
Base load is already there, and slightly too large, it's just a case of rotating out aging plants as needed. New solar with storage, is cheaper than a new coal plant, and a better alternative when replacing old coal plants. Another decade and it will be cheaper to tear down a coal plant and build new solar, with storage, than to continue operating an existing plant on coal.
I already explained the problems with solar. Solar doesn't do a good job of sustaining itself at scale, because the price of charging for the sun is akin to charging for air. Like air, the sun is free. The race to bottom means there is no money to be made. Gluttony of supply prevents any attempt of price controls, because it has to go somewhere, or else, there is no point of making it anymore. This means that plants have to be disabled. When there is a spike of energy supply, the operators have to sell the energy at a discount somewhere else. Transmission lines can transport this excess, but transmission lines are not cheap, and not easily built. They are planned very carefully. Transmission lines need to be replaced every 40 years, and they are actually considered a liability because of this. Transmission lines aren't built unless they are absolutely necessary. So while an economy that runs on solar has cheap energy fuels, even at negative prices, they will be paying for transmission lines to minimize the glut, just so they make building more plants profitable. There is no money for a 100% solar energy grid unless the government pays for it. Another way to mitigate it is by increasing energy consumption, which is the opposite of energy conservation.
It's a power grid, not a money grid.
Oh hey, you found a solution on your own.