- Investing in alternatives has led to massive new industry that is improving the economy of those countries that do it. If your argument is an economic one then jump onto the solar, wind and battery bandwagon.
- There are virtually no real short medium or long term gains economically here. Gas is the only thing still competitive with solar/wind and its costs are rising while solar and wind continue to fall. Building new maximum pollution plants would drop that internalized cost but who in their right mind would fund something so obviously DOA?
- Obviously the externalized costs of greenhouse gas emissions are deeply undervalued in this move. Even if they are 'fake news' in the US, the rest of the world is finally starting to take them seriously. The US's diminished soft power means it won't be able to easily bully the world into allowing it to pollute without consequence and such an obviously hostile move means it will loose even more of its soft power by taking this position. So on the international level this means we burn a lot of political capital and gain nothing but decades of distrust and anger.
- Current events show that energy security is dominated by decoupling from fossil fuels. This weakens the US strategically and continues to set it up to be manipulated by exceptionally hostile actors.
- Oh yeah and, of course, climate change is real.
This continues the US down the path of being the best buggy whip maker in the world. Worse than that, the US is becoming an obnoxious buggy whip maker who's neighbors are starting to hope fails horribly and will help make that happen as moves like this continue. This is stupid at every scale and in every dimension.
The Gulf countries paid handsomely to get Trump in there to keep the United States as the buyer of last resort once the rest of the world goes renewable.
Problem is that installing a bunch of sick sons of bitches to do your bidding can backfire when those some morons lose a war to Iran in a matter of months.
The current wars in Europe and the Middle East paradoxically push the world towards non-fossil enery like few things did before. Both oil and natural gas prices have skyrocketed on global markets, and will likely rise more, as Ukraine continues to target Russian oil infrastructure, and Houtis continue to stymie Saudi oil exports.
Nothing hampers solar, wind, and batteries though; at worst it takes longer to ship the key components from China to Europe around Africa.
The current wars in Europe and the Middle East could paradoxically push the world towards more domestic energy production, be it fossil or non-fossil energy.
For example in reaction to 1973 Arab oil embargo Carter boosted energy efficiency and solar and promoted coal.
"
"America indeed is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and my goal as President of the United States is to see on the world energy markets Arab oil replaced with Illinois coal," Carter told miners and employees of the Old Ben Coal Mine No. 25. He also boasted that the country would, "produce more coal in 1980 than has ever before been produced in the United States of America."
"
>The current wars in Europe and the Middle East could paradoxically push the world towards more domestic energy production, be it fossil or non-fossil energy.
Fossil fuel is still going strong and will probably stay so for the next 50 years. Like I just learned Taiwan makes most of its energy from coal and LNG and is set to denuclearize, which blew my mind given their cutting edge manufacturing economy, but kinda makes sense when you factor in their geography and geopolitics.
Global fossil fuel usage fell last year. We are on a trajectory to massively cut out fossil fuels and replace them with renewables. This was before global petroleum movement was blocked through the Strait. Check out the juicy details in the Ember 2026 report[0].
Some highlights:
Driven by record solar growth, low-carbon power generation increased by 887 TWh in 2025, outpacing electricity demand growth of 849 TWh. Solar power alone met 75% of the net increase in electricity demand. Together with wind, the two sources met almost all (99%) demand growth. For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and only the fifth time this century, fossil generation did not rise, recording a small fall of 38 TWh (-0.2%).
The global fall in fossil generation was driven by a historic reversal in fossil trends in China and India, the largest and third-largest fossil power countries globally. 2025 was the first year this century when fossil generation fell in both countries. In China, it fell by 56 TWh (-0.9%), marking the first decline since 2015.
For the first time in 100 years, renewables (33.8%, 10,730 TWh) overtook coal power (33.0%, 10,476 TWh) in the global electricity mix as continued rapid growth in solar and wind pushed the share of renewables above a third of global generation. Coal power dropped 63 TWh (-0.6%) in 2025, marking the first fall since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Combined with continued electricity demand growth, this meant coal fell below a third of global generation for the first time in history.
Fossil fuels are not used only for electricity production, they are also used for heating (low temp, high temp), feed stock for chemical proceses, combustion engines.
So what if all our oil comes from the middle east?
So what if all our gas comes from Russia?
So what if all chips are made in Taiwan?
So what if all mobile platforms are from the US?
Hopefully the penny will start to drop. Any minute now.
You burn a barrel of oil once. A solar panel lasts for 20+ years. After you have installed it, if China announces they will no longer sell new ones - you have two decades of lead time to start building your own domestically.
Either the panels are purchased piecemeal, in which case some have to be replaced every year as your rolling stock fail, or they're replaced in large batches - which would be incredibly predictable, suggesting China would not fill one massive order and then say "No more", assuming they're trying to inflict pain
Either way though, you don't have 20 years to get up to speed.
They have 25 year warranty with performance guarantee of 92%. After 25 years, it will continue to work fine, 8% lower output is perfectly acceptable. Most likely will last 50 years or more.
There is no product on the planet that has a a multi decade warranty with this kind of performance guarantee.
But we are not buying oil or gas. We are buying hardware that will generate electricity for decades.
I do hope the US turns around. As I see it, we (western countries) have aligned values and it's better for us all (US included) to stick together.
Before, say, 2022 or 2026 for that reason, oil, coal, lithium, silicon, iron, etc were mined, processed, and shipped as usual. By now, the production and shipping of oil and oil-based fuels, and, to a lesser extent, LNG is hampered by wars. The production and shipping of what is required to build solar, wind, and even nuclear power sources continues, mostly unaffected by the wars, which makes these power sources relatively (even) more attractive.
Sadly, it does not mean that EU or USA grew less dependent on China for solar panels, industrial chemicals, or a lot of other things. OTOH, they did not grow more dependent either.
> Nothing hampers solar, wind, and batteries though;
For now.
The majority of solar panels are made in China (85%), and they plan to invade Taiwan in just a few years, possibly as soon as 2027, at which point either we let them take control of AI chip production or defend Taiwan and cut ourselves off from the source of almost all manufactured products, and especially solar panels.
Taiwan cannot make chips without western inputs and spare parts, so China taking over Taiwan or Korea or Japan doesn’t really give them access to making those chips.
>and they plan to invade Taiwan in just a few years
Can you share your sources for that valuable intelligence? Military analysts would really be interested to learn that. Or is that form the same manufactured scaremongering genre as "Iran is 6 weeks away from building nuclear weapons" and "Iraq has WMDs" to justify endless defense spending, military interventions and warmongering.
> at which point either we let them take control of AI chip production
You can't just commandeer semi fabs like you're carjacking a Hyundai for a joyride. Semi fabs need constant parts and on-prem staff and always-on telemetry from ASML & friends to run. If that's gone, you're left with a very expensive warehouse that can't do shit.
You don't build out a massive fleet of amphibious landing craft, mobile piers, and other similar Navy ships that can only be used for invading another country via the sea... for self-defense. These have one purpose, and China is mass-producing them.
> "Iran is 6 weeks away from building nuclear weapons"
It is the breakout time, not the schedule.
It is incredible to me how pervasive the misunderstanding of this statement is!
I've had real-life conversations with project managers just like this:
PM: "How long would this project take?"
Me: "One month."
... two weeks later ...
PM: "How long would the project take to finish?"
Me: "One month."
PM: "You said that two weeks ago! It should only take two weeks to finish!"
Me: "Why would you think that? We never started the project! It wasn't approved. You didn't approve it, personally. The effort is four weeks. If you approve and we start today, it will still take that long to complete."
... two more weeks later ...
PM: "Why isn't the project finished!? You said one month a month ago!"
They obviously want to be able to invade Taiwan, yes, nobody serious would assert that they're developing amphibious capacity for self defence.
That's not the same thing as planning to invade in 2027, though. Militaries can need a capability without an imminent specific plan to actually use it. See the US's amphibious capacity. See nukes.
> nobody serious would assert that they're developing amphibious capacity for self defence
And why wouldn't they build that type of stuff for self defense? Which country doesn't do self defense? Have you seen how huge China's coast is and how many islands they have to defend?
>You don't build out a massive fleet of amphibious landing craft, mobile piers, and other similar Navy ships that can only be used for invading another country via the sea... for self-defense.
Firstly, this take is poorly thought out from a facts perspective, needlessly alarmist and mostly just FUD.
The fact is that China has thousands of islands in its territory already. So how else would their military be able to DEFEND those islands WITHOUT "a massive fleet of amphibious landing craft" capable of landing troops and material on islands that they own? It doesn't mean they 100% WILL invade Taiwan just because they have them, like you claim.
Secondly, the three news sources you then quoted are just your typical clickbaity mainstream media with nothing to lose if they are wrong in their alarmist predictions or just blatantly lie like they often do to manipulate people and financial markets, especially given their incentives and ties to politics and the wealthy elite.
So telling people on HN with 100% certainty China will invade Taiwan in the near future just because you read something about China's drills of Taiwan invasion in the MSM, just gets you more egg on your face that nobody can take your takes on this seriously. I'm 100% sure that the US Navy also regularly has drills on nuking China and Russia from their submarines, that doesn't mean they're actually planning to do it anytime soon with no provocation. So please, stop turning what is bland vanilla news into alarmist FUD.
> thousands of islands in its territory already
Chinas has hundreds (not thousands) of islands in its territory, which has increased from 287 in 2019 to 431 in 2026. This is not "defense".
> nobody can take your takes on this seriously.
Russia moved mobile crematoriums up to the Ukraine border in February 2022, and people still dismissed the chances of their invasion as vanishingly unlikely.
Dismissing an obvious military buildup from a country that has plainly stated their intentions is an error.
The fabs will not survive a ground invasion. If they're not hit accidentally someone will blow them up to deny them to the enemy, whether that's a Taiwanese nationalist or the US.
It feels like MAD is eroding, because at one point the reaction to China invading Taiwan would obviously have been a nuclear exchange.
>because at one point the reaction to China invading Taiwan would obviously have been a nuclear exchange.
There is no way anyone would nuke China if/when they invade Taiwan the same way nobody nuked Russia when they invaded Ukraine. And Russia is a lot less relevant globally than China.
It'll be another conventional war like the current Russo-Ukrainian one where the west will sanction China and support Taiwan.
But the solar panels we already have don't suddenly stop working, which is an important difference between sourcing solar panels from a potential enemy and sourcing raw fossil fuels from one. There's also nothing stopping the US or other trading partners from making solar panels, China is just the most convenient and cheapest source as it is for many other things. And to that point, the end of trade between the US and China would be incredibly damaging to both countries whether or not we buy solar panels from them now.
I asked Claude, and now I know that there are nice, basically undetectable, plausibly deniable ways to render solar panels useless within months, or, with some preparation, days. It seems that open-source, carefully scrutinized panel controller firmware may be critically important.
Your Claude may have been hallucinating - solar panels have no microcontrollers or microprocessors, and hence have no need for firmware. Battery Charge controllers -- that are downstream of panels do have firmware, but even if a booby-trapped firmware were to short-circuit the panels, they'd be undamaged.
Solar panels are usually connected to inverters or other power circuits that make the variable voltage they provide usable as a stable source downstream.
During operation a string of solar cells is under a pretty high voltage. It makes sodium ions from the covering glass infiltrate slowly into the silicon, potentially ruining the p-n junction ("potential-induced degradation", PID). Usually an industry-grade panel controller applies a reverse voltage during night time, to drive the sodium ions back from the silicon. A rogue controller might instead apply the same voltage, accelerating PID instead of reverting it (and kill it in several months). A really insidious producer might add a strip of extra sodium-rich material near the normal electric conductors, which would be triggered by voltage higher than normal operation to flood the silicon with sodium (and kill it in several days).
It's fun watching the right wing try to square this circle. Especially in the UK where we import most of our fossil fuels.
We could have sovereign control over our energy supply with renewables and electrification. Yay, we become a great sovereign nation free to do whatever we want with our great British energy supply!
But no, the right wing answer is to develop a couple of gas fields in the north sea that would supply a tiny amount of actual energy requirements, and do nothing for prices as it all goes into a global trading platform.
I know the reason, it's hard to say no to all that money from the fossil industry, and walk back decades of indoctrinating your base at their behest. Even if it means making your country energy independent...
It's really sad comparing the UK with Norway. The latter did "drill baby drill" before it was cool, but almost exclusively for exports. Some of that money has been invested in rapid electrification - so that Norway can export even more!
Meanwhile, the left in the UK doesn't want to drill (so less money for electrification) while the right in the UK doesn't want to electrify (so less money due to more imports). Why doesn't anyone want to copy the Norwegian model?
- Norway had and still has a lot more oil in their part of the North Sea than the UK does
- Norway has a vastly smaller population than the UK; more than ten times smaller (5.6m versus 69m). Each Norwegian gets 10x more money coming in than they would as UK citizens, just from demographics.
- Norway gambled by having the state directly invest in drilling (Statoil), while UK governments (both Labour in the 1960s and Conservative in the 1970s) refused to invest public money in drilling. Instead they let commercial companies find the money, the government merely licensed and taxed. The reason they did this was that Britain didn't have enough capital available to fund drilling at the time oil was discovered; it was the "sick man of Europe"
- Norway put its oil money into a state pension fund which continues to pay dividends today. Margaret Thatcher spent the oil money on rejuvenating the London Docklands, which admittedly did improve London's standing as the centre of global finance, which is what currently brings in most money for the UK. Perhaps if she didn't do that then financial companies might have moved elsewhere, we don't know that for sure. What we do know is she didn't spend it rejuvenating anywhere else in the country, like Scotland, Wales and Northern England after she shut the coal mines and steel mills and bought in foreign coal and steel.
My point is that there's no party in the UK that wants to drill as much as possible as well as burn as little as possible. It's either one or the other, never both like in Norway.
At least they haven't relaxed restrictions on sulfur dioxide emissions, etc.. yet. Making rain acidic again would be completely on brand for this administration.
Fossil fuel power plants are unfortunately still profitable for their owners (billionaires...). The cost of building them has mostly been written off a long time ago. None of this is about what is good for America in the long run...
> - Investing in alternatives has led to massive new industry that is improving the economy of those countries that do it
That's a baseless claim. For example, Germany has invested massively in solar but its electricity prices went up, not down.
> Gas is the only thing still competitive with solar/wind
That's false. Coal power is cheaper than all of those. Solar and wind include costs for expensive battery backups since they are highly volatile.
And to make it clear: Climate change is very bad so coal plants are very bad. But that doesn't mean you can go around and claim that coal isn't cheap compared to things like solar+batteries. The fact that something is good doesn't imply that it is cheap.
This price of electricity is high because gas, which is still expensive, sets the price of electricity most of the time [1].
The levelized cost of electricity for solar (including batteries) and wind is cheaper than coal [2].
I will believe it when I see it. The only countries with both cheap and clean electricity are those that built out extensive nuclear or got lucky enough to have access to other forms of cheap base load like hydro / geothermal.
Australia would disagree: <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/news/new-energy-plan-daily-window-free-electricity" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy.gov.au/news/new-energy-plan-daily-window-...
Here in Queensland the state owns the regional electricity company, Ergon. ∴ most of what they do that doesn't generate money (such as doing free electricity rather than charging for it) is taxpayer-funded.
Even though the power here (North Central Queensland) isn't too expensive, Ergon is run with an aim to make a profit [1] [2] even if the last few years more infrastructure seems to be needing repairs due to changes in weather conditions and or replacing ancient old or relatively new poor quality wooden poles.
Given the power here has periods where it barely goes a day without blinking out, or line repairs that can take almost 2 days now after a somewhat mild storm, there's been a large uptake of solar power panels, those that knew hooked up Island style where they can feed in their own small generator to take advantage of the panels during the day if there was no grid power, more recently batteries have become more affordable, making installation worthwhile.
The Company’s profit after income tax equivalent expense was $80.919 million for the year (2023: $225.754 million loss).
Revenue from sales of electricity is higher when compared to 2023 due to an increase in notified prices as published by the
Queensland Competition Authority in 2024. Residential and small business tariff rates increased significantly for 2024 with price rises of 29 percent and 27 percent respectively. Large business tariff rates rose between seven and 17 percent. Expenses are marginally lower compared to 2023 predominantly due to a reduction in fair value losses. More stable electricity trading conditions contributed to lower market movements on forward electricity derivative contracts.
As an Australian I can say that for me personally the free energy periods have been amazing and are an example of the functional free markets making life better for the average person.
No, Australis ai a perfect example. Australia has an average electricity cost of close to 0.3 USD / kwh. That's not cheap. It's not clean either at 525g co2/kwh. The US is 0.19 USD / kwh and 384g co2/kwh. France is 0.22 USD/kwh and 41g co2 / kwh.
> Investing in alternatives has led to massive new industry that is improving the economy of those countries that do it
> That's a baseless claim. For example, Germany has invested massively in solar but its electricity prices went up, not down.
> This price of electricity is high because gas, which is still expensive, sets the price of electricity most of the time [1].
1) Am I missing something or the link you provided contradicts your claim? On a chart #2 in the article you can see Germany has only 24% of the times price of electricity set by gas, 24% is not "most of the time", right?
2) Even if that is true, and electricity prices in Germany are set by the price of gas most of the time, it seems like you didn't address the point in a previous message. If the goal is to have lower prices and the goal(outcome) is what really matters not just the process and renewables is the path to get there then why Germany electricity prices rose at the end? And were not all of those because of this ... because of that ... supposed to be a part of that path(plan)? They did the thing, invested in solar, what have they missed and why?
Germany's decommissioned nuclear, and subsequent concentration of base load in Russian gas-fired plants, is certainly a lede your post is doing its best to bury.
> Germany's decommissioned nuclear, and subsequent concentration of base load in Russian gas-fired plants, is certainly a lede your post is doing its best to bury.
Nuclear is good (no CO2 emissions and stable energy supply), but it's not cheaper than coal. Moreover, that the requirement for gas plants went up because of the volatility of solar and wind is certainly a lede your post is doing its best to bury.
Coal isn't cheap. Specifically coal powerplants are not and it's got nothing to do with emissions. One of the pinch points in the Australian power grid has actually been that a bunch of coal plants are aging out and no private enterprise wants to even bother financing their replacement because it's a money loser compared to renewables build out.
Fortunately this is well on it's way to being solved by the massive battery build out which has happened which means evening peak electricity usage has declined enormously[1] - i.e the primary "sun not shining" point of the day is rapidly turning into an energy use low point for the grid (which makes sense: business powers down, people go home and their batteries which have been charging cover cooking - I have an induction cook top and a 10kw inverter covers everything).
There could be other regulatory and tax hurdles to an Australian coal build-out. We know that coal is at least as cheap as nuclear, and that the electricity prices went up sharply when Germany replaced much of its nuclear energy with solar energy. Therefore coal is cheaper than solar. The mistake that most people make is that they don't include the highly expensive battery or gas backups during the night in the cost of solar.
Yes there could be but there aren't, because conservative state governments have had to resort to trying to subsidize coal power plant investment because no one wants to touch it.
Two things can be true: solar can be unable to provide reliable base load power, and it can be far more profitable investment return then building a coal fired power station.
Which is what has happened: and now, with the falling price of batteries, batteries are a far more profitable return then building a coal fired power station.
Coal is expensive: solar, other then some light cleaning costs, is one and done. There's few mechanical parts and no fuel costs and you can build it anywhere there's an electrical grid (which is everywhere).
Batteries are similar: sure they might degrade, but that's over 15 years. At the right time of day, charging them can be between free, and profit generating due to all the solar.
A coal power plant is gigantic. It can't be built anywhere - it needs to be physically proximal to either a port, or an actual coal mine (which the one's near Hunter Valley in NSW are - I've driven next to the train lines for them, for example), and usually a water source too for cooling. It's a large, maintenance intensive structure (the reason the ones we have are shutting down is the maintenance has gotten very expensive because the whole structure is aging out).
And after all that, it also needs fuel - throughout it's lifetime it will need to constantly buy fuel. But it won't constantly be profitable: most renewables have a massive advantage in that they can switch off from the grid nearly instantly. So renewables are far, far better at reacting to negative power pricing conditions then thermal power plants which cannot spin down that quickly: so a coal power plant (really any thermal power plant) will usually have to pay fines when power prices go negative, whereas while solar might not like shutting down, it can do so immediately (and batteries can just hoover up all that power and claim the credits).
Grid stability is a different department, quite literally, to power generating investment which is a commercial enterprise chasing return. And solar was better, and batteries are catching up quick (partly because negative prices mean your solar investment won't be able to bank a solid 6 hours of profitable sunlight without them). The new thing is also batteries for wind - DC couple grid batteries at wind plants, turning them into much more dispatchable generating assets.
You are 100% right but I think your arguments will fall on deaf ears. Someone bribed Trump or one of his cronies to revoke pollution limits and they got it. What to do when rationality just isn't a factor in politics anymore?
I have to wonder if this is a play towards coal miners, who are part of the conservative base - and they need every vote they can get. Coal is an awful source of power, and a really big source of pollution.
I doubt they really care about coal miners’ actual votes. The US coal mining industry employs fewer than 50,000 people. I live in a major coal producing state and while it was an important industry in my grandparents’ time, these days it isn’t a particularly noteworthy share of our economy.
I would say if it’s specifically about coal at all, it’s more because of the GOP’s tendency toward weird nostalgic obsessions.
Entirely seriously, but stupid: it's gender politics. Coal mining is manly coded, renewables are feminine coded and therefore deemed bad by the right.
I should have included voters in all the communities in coal mining areas, not just the miners - all the families and everyone of voting age in coal mining areas who now might think that coal mining is coming back (and it just might under trump). Revoking limits on pollution by power plants benefits coal more than any other form of energy production.
> - Current events show that energy security is dominated by decoupling from fossil fuels. This weakens the US strategically and continues to set it up to be manipulated by exceptionally hostile actors.
Is not Germany an example of the opposite? I mean their decision to shut down nuclear plants while getting dependant on Russian supply of energy sources?
jmward01 · · focus · HN ↗
- Investing in alternatives has led to massive new industry that is improving the economy of those countries that do it. If your argument is an economic one then jump onto the solar, wind and battery bandwagon.
- There are virtually no real short medium or long term gains economically here. Gas is the only thing still competitive with solar/wind and its costs are rising while solar and wind continue to fall. Building new maximum pollution plants would drop that internalized cost but who in their right mind would fund something so obviously DOA?
- Obviously the externalized costs of greenhouse gas emissions are deeply undervalued in this move. Even if they are 'fake news' in the US, the rest of the world is finally starting to take them seriously. The US's diminished soft power means it won't be able to easily bully the world into allowing it to pollute without consequence and such an obviously hostile move means it will loose even more of its soft power by taking this position. So on the international level this means we burn a lot of political capital and gain nothing but decades of distrust and anger.
- Current events show that energy security is dominated by decoupling from fossil fuels. This weakens the US strategically and continues to set it up to be manipulated by exceptionally hostile actors.
- Oh yeah and, of course, climate change is real.
This continues the US down the path of being the best buggy whip maker in the world. Worse than that, the US is becoming an obnoxious buggy whip maker who's neighbors are starting to hope fails horribly and will help make that happen as moves like this continue. This is stupid at every scale and in every dimension.
selectodude · · focus · HN ↗
Problem is that installing a bunch of sick sons of bitches to do your bidding can backfire when those some morons lose a war to Iran in a matter of months.
nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
Nothing hampers solar, wind, and batteries though; at worst it takes longer to ship the key components from China to Europe around Africa.
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
For example in reaction to 1973 Arab oil embargo Carter boosted energy efficiency and solar and promoted coal.
" "America indeed is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and my goal as President of the United States is to see on the world energy markets Arab oil replaced with Illinois coal," Carter told miners and employees of the Old Ben Coal Mine No. 25. He also boasted that the country would, "produce more coal in 1980 than has ever before been produced in the United States of America." "
<a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/12/29/1158426645/jimmy-carters-environmental-legacy-set-the-foundation-for-todays-climate-action" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2024/12/29/1158426645/jimmy-carters-envi...
New coal gasification projects in India
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-clears-4-billion-plan-boost-gas-production-coal-2026-05-13/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-clears-4-billi...
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
Fossil fuel is still going strong and will probably stay so for the next 50 years. Like I just learned Taiwan makes most of its energy from coal and LNG and is set to denuclearize, which blew my mind given their cutting edge manufacturing economy, but kinda makes sense when you factor in their geography and geopolitics.
3eb7988a1663 · · focus · HN ↗
Some highlights:
[0] <a href="https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/" rel="nofollow">https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...throwaway473825 · · focus · HN ↗
This year, oil and gas are projected to fall as a whole, although coal is still expected to grow:
<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-fossil-fuel-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2026-amid-hormuz-crisis" rel="nofollow">https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-fossil-fuel-emis...
leonidasrup · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-emissions" rel="nofollow">https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-em...
Fossil fuels are not used only for electricity production, they are also used for heating (low temp, high temp), feed stock for chemical proceses, combustion engines.
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
Except you know, all the actual mining and manufacturing of those things, which isn't in the west but mostly in China.
dalyons · · focus · HN ↗
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
thatfrenchguy · · focus · HN ↗
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
3eb7988a1663 · · focus · HN ↗
xethos · · focus · HN ↗
Either way though, you don't have 20 years to get up to speed.
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
You have 20 years minus one day, as every day elapses.
Existing installed solar capacity is degrading at one day per day.
thelastgallon · · focus · HN ↗
There is no product on the planet that has a a multi decade warranty with this kind of performance guarantee.
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
nazgul17 · · focus · HN ↗
I do hope the US turns around. As I see it, we (western countries) have aligned values and it's better for us all (US included) to stick together.
nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
Sadly, it does not mean that EU or USA grew less dependent on China for solar panels, industrial chemicals, or a lot of other things. OTOH, they did not grow more dependent either.
jiggawatts · · focus · HN ↗
For now.
The majority of solar panels are made in China (85%), and they plan to invade Taiwan in just a few years, possibly as soon as 2027, at which point either we let them take control of AI chip production or defend Taiwan and cut ourselves off from the source of almost all manufactured products, and especially solar panels.
seanmcdirmid · · focus · HN ↗
nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
Can you share your sources for that valuable intelligence? Military analysts would really be interested to learn that. Or is that form the same manufactured scaremongering genre as "Iran is 6 weeks away from building nuclear weapons" and "Iraq has WMDs" to justify endless defense spending, military interventions and warmongering.
> at which point either we let them take control of AI chip production
You can't just commandeer semi fabs like you're carjacking a Hyundai for a joyride. Semi fabs need constant parts and on-prem staff and always-on telemetry from ASML & friends to run. If that's gone, you're left with a very expensive warehouse that can't do shit.
jiggawatts · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CHINA/TAIWAN-INVASION/zjpqdekmlvx/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CHINA/TAIWAN-INVASION/z...
<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/36a00ba4-6178-4267-9786-3e0b59abe67f" rel="nofollow">https://www.ft.com/content/36a00ba4-6178-4267-9786-3e0b59abe...
<a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-taiwan-military-naval-air-sites-4a02c450" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-taiwan-military-naval-...
> "Iran is 6 weeks away from building nuclear weapons"
It is the breakout time, not the schedule.
It is incredible to me how pervasive the misunderstanding of this statement is!
I've had real-life conversations with project managers just like this:
PM: "How long would this project take?"
Me: "One month."
... two weeks later ...
PM: "How long would the project take to finish?"
Me: "One month."
PM: "You said that two weeks ago! It should only take two weeks to finish!"
Me: "Why would you think that? We never started the project! It wasn't approved. You didn't approve it, personally. The effort is four weeks. If you approve and we start today, it will still take that long to complete."
... two more weeks later ...
PM: "Why isn't the project finished!? You said one month a month ago!"
Me: "... wat?"
amenhotep · · focus · HN ↗
That's not the same thing as planning to invade in 2027, though. Militaries can need a capability without an imminent specific plan to actually use it. See the US's amphibious capacity. See nukes.
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
And why wouldn't they build that type of stuff for self defense? Which country doesn't do self defense? Have you seen how huge China's coast is and how many islands they have to defend?
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
Firstly, this take is poorly thought out from a facts perspective, needlessly alarmist and mostly just FUD.
The fact is that China has thousands of islands in its territory already. So how else would their military be able to DEFEND those islands WITHOUT "a massive fleet of amphibious landing craft" capable of landing troops and material on islands that they own? It doesn't mean they 100% WILL invade Taiwan just because they have them, like you claim.
Secondly, the three news sources you then quoted are just your typical clickbaity mainstream media with nothing to lose if they are wrong in their alarmist predictions or just blatantly lie like they often do to manipulate people and financial markets, especially given their incentives and ties to politics and the wealthy elite.
So telling people on HN with 100% certainty China will invade Taiwan in the near future just because you read something about China's drills of Taiwan invasion in the MSM, just gets you more egg on your face that nobody can take your takes on this seriously. I'm 100% sure that the US Navy also regularly has drills on nuking China and Russia from their submarines, that doesn't mean they're actually planning to do it anytime soon with no provocation. So please, stop turning what is bland vanilla news into alarmist FUD.
jiggawatts · · focus · HN ↗
Chinas has hundreds (not thousands) of islands in its territory, which has increased from 287 in 2019 to 431 in 2026. This is not "defense".
> nobody can take your takes on this seriously.
Russia moved mobile crematoriums up to the Ukraine border in February 2022, and people still dismissed the chances of their invasion as vanishingly unlikely.
Dismissing an obvious military buildup from a country that has plainly stated their intentions is an error.
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
With the argument being ... ?
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
Your second paragraph assumes China doesn’t have all the espionage necessary, and hasn’t proven their capabilities on their own labs.
Like the Chinese are just sans neocortex or something.
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
It feels like MAD is eroding, because at one point the reaction to China invading Taiwan would obviously have been a nuclear exchange.
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
There is no way anyone would nuke China if/when they invade Taiwan the same way nobody nuked Russia when they invaded Ukraine. And Russia is a lot less relevant globally than China.
It'll be another conventional war like the current Russo-Ukrainian one where the west will sanction China and support Taiwan.
rainsford · · focus · HN ↗
nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
overfeed · · focus · HN ↗
nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
During operation a string of solar cells is under a pretty high voltage. It makes sodium ions from the covering glass infiltrate slowly into the silicon, potentially ruining the p-n junction ("potential-induced degradation", PID). Usually an industry-grade panel controller applies a reverse voltage during night time, to drive the sodium ions back from the silicon. A rogue controller might instead apply the same voltage, accelerating PID instead of reverting it (and kill it in several months). A really insidious producer might add a strip of extra sodium-rich material near the normal electric conductors, which would be triggered by voltage higher than normal operation to flood the silicon with sodium (and kill it in several days).
overfeed · · focus · HN ↗
jaybrendansmith · · focus · HN ↗
phatfish · · focus · HN ↗
We could have sovereign control over our energy supply with renewables and electrification. Yay, we become a great sovereign nation free to do whatever we want with our great British energy supply!
But no, the right wing answer is to develop a couple of gas fields in the north sea that would supply a tiny amount of actual energy requirements, and do nothing for prices as it all goes into a global trading platform.
I know the reason, it's hard to say no to all that money from the fossil industry, and walk back decades of indoctrinating your base at their behest. Even if it means making your country energy independent...
throwaway473825 · · focus · HN ↗
Meanwhile, the left in the UK doesn't want to drill (so less money for electrification) while the right in the UK doesn't want to electrify (so less money due to more imports). Why doesn't anyone want to copy the Norwegian model?
amiga386 · · focus · HN ↗
- Norway had and still has a lot more oil in their part of the North Sea than the UK does
- Norway has a vastly smaller population than the UK; more than ten times smaller (5.6m versus 69m). Each Norwegian gets 10x more money coming in than they would as UK citizens, just from demographics.
- Norway gambled by having the state directly invest in drilling (Statoil), while UK governments (both Labour in the 1960s and Conservative in the 1970s) refused to invest public money in drilling. Instead they let commercial companies find the money, the government merely licensed and taxed. The reason they did this was that Britain didn't have enough capital available to fund drilling at the time oil was discovered; it was the "sick man of Europe"
- Norway put its oil money into a state pension fund which continues to pay dividends today. Margaret Thatcher spent the oil money on rejuvenating the London Docklands, which admittedly did improve London's standing as the centre of global finance, which is what currently brings in most money for the UK. Perhaps if she didn't do that then financial companies might have moved elsewhere, we don't know that for sure. What we do know is she didn't spend it rejuvenating anywhere else in the country, like Scotland, Wales and Northern England after she shut the coal mines and steel mills and bought in foreign coal and steel.
throwaway473825 · · focus · HN ↗
rightnutwingjob · · focus · HN ↗
No, you could not.
beloch · · focus · HN ↗
actionfromafar · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted]
actionfromafar · · focus · HN ↗
juujian · · focus · HN ↗
thelastgallon · · focus · HN ↗
cubefox · · focus · HN ↗
That's a baseless claim. For example, Germany has invested massively in solar but its electricity prices went up, not down.
> Gas is the only thing still competitive with solar/wind
That's false. Coal power is cheaper than all of those. Solar and wind include costs for expensive battery backups since they are highly volatile.
And to make it clear: Climate change is very bad so coal plants are very bad. But that doesn't mean you can go around and claim that coal isn't cheap compared to things like solar+batteries. The fact that something is good doesn't imply that it is cheap.
importantstuff · · focus · HN ↗
[1] <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-does-gas-set-the-price-of-electricity-and-is-there-an-alternative" rel="nofollow">https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-does-gas-set-the-price-of... [2] <a href="https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2024/photovoltaic-plants-with-battery-cheaper-than-conventional-power-plants.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/...
consensus1 · · focus · HN ↗
tapoxi · · focus · HN ↗
mjmas · · focus · HN ↗
And we banned nuclear, since it's scary.
tapoxi · · focus · HN ↗
mjmas · · focus · HN ↗
anenefan · · focus · HN ↗
Given the power here has periods where it barely goes a day without blinking out, or line repairs that can take almost 2 days now after a somewhat mild storm, there's been a large uptake of solar power panels, those that knew hooked up Island style where they can feed in their own small generator to take advantage of the panels during the day if there was no grid power, more recently batteries have become more affordable, making installation worthwhile.
[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergon_Energy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergon_Energy
[2] <a href="https://www.energyq.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2065843/Ergon-Energy-Queensland-Pty-Ltd-Annual-Financial-Report-2023-24.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.energyq.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/20658... [pdf]
>Operating and financial review
The Company’s profit after income tax equivalent expense was $80.919 million for the year (2023: $225.754 million loss). Revenue from sales of electricity is higher when compared to 2023 due to an increase in notified prices as published by the Queensland Competition Authority in 2024. Residential and small business tariff rates increased significantly for 2024 with price rises of 29 percent and 27 percent respectively. Large business tariff rates rose between seven and 17 percent. Expenses are marginally lower compared to 2023 predominantly due to a reduction in fair value losses. More stable electricity trading conditions contributed to lower market movements on forward electricity derivative contracts.
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
phillipinman · · focus · HN ↗
consensus1 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?source=total&metric=carbon_intensity&frequency=annual" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?source=to...
maxnevermind · · focus · HN ↗
> That's a baseless claim. For example, Germany has invested massively in solar but its electricity prices went up, not down.
> This price of electricity is high because gas, which is still expensive, sets the price of electricity most of the time [1].
1) Am I missing something or the link you provided contradicts your claim? On a chart #2 in the article you can see Germany has only 24% of the times price of electricity set by gas, 24% is not "most of the time", right?
2) Even if that is true, and electricity prices in Germany are set by the price of gas most of the time, it seems like you didn't address the point in a previous message. If the goal is to have lower prices and the goal(outcome) is what really matters not just the process and renewables is the path to get there then why Germany electricity prices rose at the end? And were not all of those because of this ... because of that ... supposed to be a part of that path(plan)? They did the thing, invested in solar, what have they missed and why?
cubefox · · focus · HN ↗
Not true. Gas backups are only needed for solar and wind. Gas replaces only battery backups here, which would be even more expensive.
> which is still expensive, sets the price of electricity most of the time [1].
That's why solar and wind are expensive.
> The levelized cost of electricity for solar (including batteries) and wind is cheaper than coal [2].
Not true. You have to include the required gas backups during the night or calm winds.
tadfisher · · focus · HN ↗
3eb7988a1663 · · focus · HN ↗
cubefox · · focus · HN ↗
Nuclear is good (no CO2 emissions and stable energy supply), but it's not cheaper than coal. Moreover, that the requirement for gas plants went up because of the volatility of solar and wind is certainly a lede your post is doing its best to bury.
XorNot · · focus · HN ↗
Fortunately this is well on it's way to being solved by the massive battery build out which has happened which means evening peak electricity usage has declined enormously[1] - i.e the primary "sun not shining" point of the day is rapidly turning into an energy use low point for the grid (which makes sense: business powers down, people go home and their batteries which have been charging cover cooking - I have an induction cook top and a 10kw inverter covers everything).
[1] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/15/australias-dependence-on-gas-generation-during-evening-energy-peak-falls-by-almost-70" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/15/austr...
cubefox · · focus · HN ↗
XorNot · · focus · HN ↗
Two things can be true: solar can be unable to provide reliable base load power, and it can be far more profitable investment return then building a coal fired power station.
Which is what has happened: and now, with the falling price of batteries, batteries are a far more profitable return then building a coal fired power station.
Coal is expensive: solar, other then some light cleaning costs, is one and done. There's few mechanical parts and no fuel costs and you can build it anywhere there's an electrical grid (which is everywhere).
Batteries are similar: sure they might degrade, but that's over 15 years. At the right time of day, charging them can be between free, and profit generating due to all the solar.
A coal power plant is gigantic. It can't be built anywhere - it needs to be physically proximal to either a port, or an actual coal mine (which the one's near Hunter Valley in NSW are - I've driven next to the train lines for them, for example), and usually a water source too for cooling. It's a large, maintenance intensive structure (the reason the ones we have are shutting down is the maintenance has gotten very expensive because the whole structure is aging out).
And after all that, it also needs fuel - throughout it's lifetime it will need to constantly buy fuel. But it won't constantly be profitable: most renewables have a massive advantage in that they can switch off from the grid nearly instantly. So renewables are far, far better at reacting to negative power pricing conditions then thermal power plants which cannot spin down that quickly: so a coal power plant (really any thermal power plant) will usually have to pay fines when power prices go negative, whereas while solar might not like shutting down, it can do so immediately (and batteries can just hoover up all that power and claim the credits).
Grid stability is a different department, quite literally, to power generating investment which is a commercial enterprise chasing return. And solar was better, and batteries are catching up quick (partly because negative prices mean your solar investment won't be able to bank a solid 6 hours of profitable sunlight without them). The new thing is also batteries for wind - DC couple grid batteries at wind plants, turning them into much more dispatchable generating assets.
bjourne · · focus · HN ↗
leptons · · focus · HN ↗
bunderbunder · · focus · HN ↗
I would say if it’s specifically about coal at all, it’s more because of the GOP’s tendency toward weird nostalgic obsessions.
pjc50 · · focus · HN ↗
leptons · · focus · HN ↗
maxnevermind · · focus · HN ↗
Is not Germany an example of the opposite? I mean their decision to shut down nuclear plants while getting dependant on Russian supply of energy sources?