It can make more sense to build new renewable capacity than run old coal plants

&quot;[Wind and solar are] even close to being competitive with the marginal costs of running the coal and nuclear plants we already have.&quot;<p>Is that still true without incentives, green grants, rebates, and tax credits? Because without all of that and with mountains of red tape nuclear still produces energy at the lowest cost, and without emitting any CO2.

I don&#x27;t understand the hype around wind and solar. Or rather I don&#x27;t see how these technologies can ever be anything more than a minor player in the energy market:<p>These technologies are extremely sensitive to weather conditions which means that other, more stable sources must exist and have &quot;stand by&quot; production cap to produce all the energy these tech won&#x27;t under bad conditions. If so, what&#x27;s the point? (I mean in the grand, climate crisis, scheme of things) what am I missing?<p>Even in &quot;green&quot; countries, most of the green energy comes from bio fuel which is just burning young &quot;soon to be coal&quot;.

I learned from Professor Vaclav Smil that while Wind and Solar are practical energy solutions in the United States population ~340mil. It is not practical in all regions in more populous countries such as China (population ~1.4 Billion).<p>There are large regions in the country where Solar is not a good solution due to fog. And Wind is not a good solution due to lack of wind.<p>We have a global climate system. As is such if the goal is to reduce carbon emissions in some areas Nuclear power is the most effective method to achieve this goal. Furthermore, moving China to non-carbon energy sources would have the largest impact globally. They use ~ 22 GigaWatts of electricity per year. Which is 3.6 times as much as the US which is the 2ed largest consumer of energy by country.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vaclavsmil.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vaclavsmil.com&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_electrici...</a>

Oh, can I not wait to ditch Ontario&#x27;s Power for my own Renewables. The costs are reaching extremes now. We have some of the most expensive power in the world.

Love reading this kind of news. As an aside, this is the exact type of content that is super welcome on the platform we launched in a Show HN on the front page today (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21472817" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=21472817</a>). The url is <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;collective.energy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;collective.energy</a> if you&#x27;re interested in growing your impact further!

I wish small scale solar was falling as fast, especially very small scale. It would be nice to be able to purchase a blanket-sized solar panel for twenty bucks.

My experience with utility solar is it’s getting competitive but not reliably so yet: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ctdonath&#x2F;status&#x2F;1184138472988315648?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ctdonath&#x2F;status&#x2F;1184138472988315648?s=20</a>

Sounds great until you read the caveats, I think the general agreement is that choosing the best of the dirtiest sources is going to be the important decision facing my kids&#x27; generation.