Technology

As your northern neighbors. We did subsidize it too, but now the privatized energy companies started whining that there wasn't enough capacity, so now they charge you for creating free energy

4 million households in Australia have solar panels.

They are great value.

Because there are nights there are winters there are cloudy and rainy days, and there are no batteries capable of balancing all of these issues. Also when you account for those batteries the cost is going to shift a bit. So we need to invest in nuclear and renewables and batteries. So we can start getting rid of coal and gas plants.

I think there's a contingent of people who think nuclear is really, really cool. And it is cool. Splitting atoms to make power is undeniably awesome. That doesn't make it sensible, though, and they don't separate those two thoughts in their mind. Their solution is to double down on talking points designed for use against Greenpeace in the 90s rather than absorbing new information that changes the landscape.

And then there's a second group that isn't even trying to argue in good faith. They "support" nuclear knowing it won't go anywhere because it keeps fossil fuels in place.

When panels were 30c/watt, projects at $1/watt in EU and US happened. 70c/watt was spent on labour, copper, support structures, and grid connection equipment. All of those can be locally produced, with possible exception of last item.

At 6c/watt, that is over 90% of power projects are local economy boosting instead of 70%. It provides cheaper energy that is useful for industrialization and cost of living benefits too. US tariffs on solar are entirely about protecting oil/gas extortion power instead of a $10B solar production industry that needs fairly expensive support.

Solar imports does not cause energy dependence. You have power for 30+ years with no reliance on continuous fuel supplies. Shoes and apparel is a $450B industry in US. You need new supplies every year, and it makes much more sense to secure supply in that industry for war on the world purposes.

It is good, period.

Local manufacturing is politically advantageous and may employ some people at the same time, but that's where benefits end.

Europe didn't reject Chinese face masks during COVID-19, and Europe shouldn't reject Chinese solar during a climate emergency.

Solve that first, and political struggles later.

Europeans demolished their manufacturing sector when they stripped all the wiring out of the walls during the austerity years.

You can't blame people for buying foreign when you've been defunding domestic infrastructure for over a decade.

Yep the EU will be beholden to a dictatorial regime again. Instead of placating Putin for gas it will be Xi for solar panels and batteries.

By providing big subsidies to green energy developement. Something the EU could also have done but refused to. And so they lost their entire lead.

These are topcon modules only. Considering a 400W panel will have about 72 modules in it, that's only about 15 panels worth. Of course, then you have to actually build the panel and connect the modules, put it behind glass inside a frame, then put in a bypass diode and leads for connection. So an actual panel ends up being about 5-10X the cost of the modules per W.

Scotland has really good wind power, anyway. Between that, nuclear, and a few other renewable sources, you guys are down to 10% fossil fuel energy use. So don't worry about solar.