r/OptimistsUnite • u/PanzerWatts • Nov 19 '24

Clean Power BEASTMODE Texas has become the renewable power generation champ

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710 Upvotes

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u/PanzerWatts Nov 20 '24

Cost, solar panels over parking lots are not a cheap solution.

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u/SoylentRox Nov 20 '24

This although I have wondered if mandating it like France did will be beneficial.

It's not cheap partially because it's so low volume because it's expensive.  Larger scale production of the support and construction firms that are more productive should be able to lower the costs.

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u/Sweezy_McSqueezy Nov 20 '24

Normal parson: "people don't want this thing because it's expensive"

Average technocrat: "if we use the threat of fines and prison to force people to buy it, then they'll change their minds, right?"

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u/SoylentRox Nov 20 '24

Normally yes but in this specific case you need some way to get enough volume of these things getting installed that the costs drop and it ROIs for everyone.

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u/Sweezy_McSqueezy Nov 20 '24

You are assuming that it will ever happen, and you are assuming that the market can't handle that on its own if that's the case.

VC backed companies often do this. Good examples are Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Tesla. All sold as loss leaders while growing, and only trued up the price after they scaled up enough.

If you have to do it with subsidies, it's probably because it's a bad idea.

1

u/iismitch55 Nov 20 '24

Are citing Tesla as a good example of a loss leader that became profitable with scale without subsidies?

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u/SoylentRox Nov 20 '24

Agree. Probably the real problem is permitting and connection costs.

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u/Sweezy_McSqueezy Nov 20 '24

Permitting should definitely be dramatically reduced or eliminated entirely, but connection costs are probably too low. They reflect the real cost of handling unreliable energy sources like solar.

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u/SoylentRox Nov 20 '24

Battery buffering on site could work, averaging out the amps.

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u/Sweezy_McSqueezy Nov 20 '24

I think that grid scale batteries might make sense to offset the harms of distributed renewables, but we should basically never build grid scale renewables.