Inspired by a post of Lyn Alden about the cost of “green energy” i would like to start my first Article at NOSTR abour Renewable Energy Sector. To be clear at this point. I am using NOSTR to publish topics about renewable energy sector which i could not publish without NOSTR or without risking my job. But i find it nessesary to talk about some topics and to clarify some others. I think i will not be able to put everything into one Article so I guess this is the Beginning of the Series:
But now let us start with the post of Lyn that gave me some inspiration.
If “green energy” (including w/ storage as needed) costs more than hydrocarbons and doesn’t win in the marketplace, then maybe it is more environmentally impactful than you think, with energy-intensive and materially-intensive supply chains. Likewise, if fake meat costs more than real meat, then maybe it too is more environmentally impactful then you think, with energy-intensive and materially-intensive supply chains. Lyn Alden
Let us focus on the Renewables Part. I don’t want to talk about the beyond meat nonsens. The question if green energy costs more than hydrocarbons can be answered quite fast. And this will be the main topic for today to clarify. Like we all hope to see mass adoption of Bitcoin the world has seen mass adoption of renewables already and still sees it. Many are still argumenting that Renewables are only profitable with subsidies. And this is true, if we’re still back in 2013. Many people talking about this still have their knowledge from ten years ago and missed to keep up with the development. Meanwhile we have passed the break even point between some renewable energy technologies in comparison to the former cheap energy provided by coal plants back in around 2015. Somewhere around this time we have seen the shift where the LCOE of wind energy has broken through the LCOE line of coal. Simple as that.
Looking onto the Research data from Bloomberg we see the impressive technological push of the last ten years and how onshore wind became the leading electricity source in terms of cost. Hydropower is not included in this picture but in comparison it is competitive to wind and solar. And now we have at least three renewables that we can call cost efficient in comparison to hydrocarbons.
- Onshore wind
- Solarpower
- Hydropower
The third one is interesting for all those who still argument about the missing base load in renewables. I hope that now it is easy for everybody to understand that renewables have to play a role in our elecrtrical grid. The 2023 technology in this field is amazing and there is still a lot to research about. Since i started my research on this 17 years ago the technological landscape has changed dramatically. Ten years ago we could not imagine what we would build this year.
Coming back to the question raised by Lyn, I would like to ask another one back.
If “green energy” is the most cost effective way to produce electricity, what the hell is wrong in this industry?
The answer to this question is manigfold and will be answered in this new series. I dearly hope you enjoyed reading and are now curious for more.
Mateusz