Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[entropy]

Re Paris Picture I think it was surprising and despite my efforts I cannot pin down where it came from. Where did you get it? Also, what do you take from the picture (what's the point of it)?

As far as I can tell it's a picture of the Place de la republique. It had become a makeshirtdt memorial in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and for the other victims of terrorism. It was cleaned in august of 2016.

Randomly on google.. I was discussing graffiti art on another board and stumbled across it. I'm glad it was cleaned. I still think it is sad that that level of graffiti is tolerated on what I assumed is a historical building.

If the rinse and repeat is also true, makes me wonder even more.. When small, yet public crimes are allowed to go unpunished, it just encourages the larger ones.

[iam416]

Electricity is bought from generators in short-term auctions, so if it's true that wind and solar are so competitive, those generators will be able to underbid owners of coal-fired assets anyways

This is the way things ought to go, IMO. And the way things will go, eventually, IMO. Coal will remain viable, though, for longer in regions less friendly to current renewable technology. Fortunately, if you're terrified of climate disaster, natural gas technology is ascendant in most of those areas.

[iam416]

Addendum -- Coal in the US only is what I was talking about.

Obviously, China is the big consumer of coal at roughly 4X the US. And they don't seem to have the newly-viable natural gas resources the US does.

[Hannibal]

The issue with wind and solar is the huge up front capital cost. On an ongoing basis, they are cheap, but it costs a shit ton of money to build the same generation capacity. It's an issue of real estate too. It takes huge amounts of surface area for solar and wind to generate electricity and that space has to be located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then you have to build the infrastructure to get the power where it needs to go.

That's why knowing the assumptions that went into the cost numbers shown earlier is critical. How big of a facility are you talking about? What kind of utlization is assumed for the solar and wind? What kind of payback period and cost of capital is being assumed?

[entropy]

I'd like to see the US allow more homeowners the flexibility to go "off the grid" if they'd like

[entropy]

The issue with wind and solar is the huge up front capital cost. On an ongoing basis, they are cheap, but it costs a shit ton of money to build the same generation capacity. It's an issue of real estate too. It takes huge amounts of surface area for solar and wind to generate electricity and that space has to be located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then you have to build the infrastructure to get the power where it needs to go.

we fly over states are laughing.. :-P

[iam416]

So, globally, China and India are the issue with coal. It's cheap and abundant. Cheap energy helps combat poverty. My guess is those countries are still under-served, energy-wise. So even renewables could come in at cost-competitive prices in those markets they very well be simply filling unmet demand.

[Hannibal]

People watch too much science fiction and read too many inspirational business books about how entrepreneur X made crazy idea Y happen against all odds when all of the naysayers of the world doubted him. I can't tell if I am just getting older and crankier or of the problem is getting worse.

[iam416]

The issue with wind and solar is the huge up front capital cost. On an ongoing basis, they are cheap, but it costs a shit ton of money to build the same generation capacity. It's an issue of real estate too. It takes huge amounts of surface area for solar and wind to generate electricity and that space has to be located pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then you have to build the infrastructure to get the power where it needs to go.

Yeah, that's why California is actually a perfect test lab. I may not agree with the State mandating 33% renewable usage, but it is what it is. That said, California does have massive amounts of cheap real estate fairly fucking ideal for solar. They also have some really good spots for wind -- as I found out driving around Palm Springs -- the ginormous wind fields were fairly shocking.

But, the point being -- California is almost ideally-suited to produce renewables -- the government has imposed requirements that drive the market for renewables -- so looking at California, as fucked up as it may be, we ought to have a good sense of where we stand as to the potential for that energy.

[iam416]

People watch too much science fiction and read too many inspirational business books about how entrepreneur X made crazy idea Y happen against all odds when all of the naysayers of the world doubted him.

Nah. You talk to entrepreneurs and you know that they fail and fail and then, maybe, come up with a company that makes it to acquisition.

But, we're also smart enough to know that entrepreneurship and innovation is best measured as an aggregate story, not an individual one.

But, hey, man, if you want to bet against human ingenuity, then so be it. I think that's a losing proposition.

[hack]

Hannibal, investment bankers don't struggle to add up costs and pit them against revenues. What you're saying isn't a new idea new to them. The electricity industry has a standard metric, levelized cost of electricity. That's what the Morgan Stanley graph uses.

[entropy]

Nah. You talk to entrepreneurs and you know that they fail and fail and then, maybe, come up with a company that makes it to acquisition.

But, we're also smart enough to know that entrepreneurship and innovation is best measured as an aggregate story, not an individual one.

But, hey, man, if you want to bet against human ingenuity, then so be it. I think that's a losing proposition.

Unless you're part of the upper crust already and attend certain schools.. then you will find investors and you will make it. For the vast majority, acquisition is really the best possible outcome.

[iam416]

Unless you're part of the upper crust already and attend certain schools.. then you will find investors and you will make it. For the vast majority, acquisition is really the best possible outcome.

I'm not really familiar with the former, at least in the Ohio start-up "ecosystem." However, for a number of reasons, acquisition is often the best outcome. That varies across sectors, of course. Some technologies are easier to scale up than others.

[Hannibal]

When human ingenuity runs head first into the laws of thermodynamics or some other barrier that you can't engineer around then I'll bet on the thermoydanmics every time. In any event, you can never figure out where it's going to show up. Expecting it to happen in one area is futile. For 40 years, people have been waiting for a breakthrough in alternative energy. By far the biggest energy breakthrough of my lifetime has been fracking. It did more to establish energy independence than all other innovations, advancements, and regulations of the last 40 years combined. It has been so profound that the country is becoming a big energy exporter. There is talk or reversing pipelines to take fuels from the Midwest to the US Gulf Coast. This was unimaginable 20 years ago.

[Hannibal]

Hannibal, investment bankers don't struggle to add up costs and pit them against revenues.

I didn't say that they struggle with it. But a cost per KW-hr number is utterly worthless without knowing the assumptions that go into those numbers. This is especially true if it includes amortized capital cost. What kind of facility life do they assume? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? What cost of capital? I don't know whether the entire industry has standard set of assumptions for a presentation like this. Having seen similar circusmstances in a different industry, I would say that they probably don't.