The renewables rollout just keeps going despite the discourse. It does mean buying things from China, which is now the least threatening option.

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Cthulhu_ 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't mind buying from china, as long as they're not irreplaceable essentials (like oil). Solar panels and -batteries are fine as long as they meet safety standards and don't have backdoors, and for all the fearmongering that Chinese made tech has backdoors in them, nobody seems to have found any evidence of that. And since it's electronics, any chip and any software can be investigated and taken apart by both amateur hackers and government funded (IT) security bureaus. Nothing. Unless I missed it, but I don't think something as big as that would go by quietly.

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spwa4 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, but it won't matter. The state energy firms of EU countries are going heavily into debt to survive this crisis, and it'll just turn from "paying high electricity prices because oil is expensive" to "paying high energy prices to repay state debt".

I mean it'll help in the sense that energy supply will switch to renewable sources, sure. Great for the climate, hopefully, But it won't help in lowering energy cost.

And before you say "but solar panels". A bunch of states have already started pretty heavily taxing them.

	▲	pjc50 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The state energy firms of EU countries Which state energy firms? Most countries have mostly privatized generation with just the grid in public ownership. EDF is something of an exception, but they have very different economics (and the nuclear fleet). > "paying high energy prices to repay state debt" The whole range of general taxation is available for that. > A bunch of states have already started pretty heavily taxing them. Which European states?

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mpweiher 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Alas, it is exactly the intermittent renewables that create a dependency on fossil fuels.

Unless you have nuclear or another reliable source like hydro, which you only get if you have the right topography for it.

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ragebol 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How do renewables create a dependency on fossil fuels? This dependency already existed before renewables in the current sense were a thing.

If anything, renewables help existing stock of fossil fuels last longer as you don't burn as much when renewables are generating.

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pepperoni_pizza 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The way they do renewables in some places:

* solar with no storage

* shutting down existing nuclear

* natural gas peaker plants

* making everyone to use natural gas for heating by making it much cheaper than electricity

* slowing down the EV rollout by keeping to subsidize gas and diesel

could definitely be seen as a scheme to make the fossil fuel gravy train last as long as possible.

And that's not even talking about the absolutely out there schemes that didn't succeed like hydrogen powered vehicles (with most of hydrogen coming from fossil fuels and you can theoretically switch to zero emission one but you never would have because the fossil one is always going to be cheaper because making hydrogen is difficult).

But it could also all just be incompetence.

	▲	ragebol 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		All true, but that does not create a fossil fuel dependency, it just prolongs an already existing one.
	▲	mcv 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Gas for heating used to be the standard but is on its way out now. My house hasn't had a gas connection for 8 years, and many people qre switching to heat pumps and other cleaner methods of heating.
	▲	mcphage 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> The way they do renewables in some places: > * making everyone to use natural gas for heating by making it much cheaper than electricity They do renewables in some places by selling cheap fossil fuels? That’s… not doing renewables.

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peterbecich 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm going to guess if net energy use goes up, due to a glut of renewable energy, the gaps on cloudy, windless days will result in greater fossil fuel use than before.

There need to be assurances renewables are replacing fossil fuels rather than just adding capacity.

	▲	pjc50 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> the gaps on cloudy, windless days will result in greater fossil fuel use than before How can it possibly, when ""before"" (what dates and countries are we talking about?) was mostly fossil fuel anyway? Remember that Germany, France, Spain and Poland look completely different in terms of energy mix!

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fundatus 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Alas, it is exactly the intermittent renewables that create a dependency on fossil fuels.

First of all, this is an insane statement.

> Unless you have nuclear

Second of all, with nuclear most countries will still be dependent on other countries for their fuel needs. So it doesn't solve the problem discussed here at all.