this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Renewables are cheaper than coal.
What you've misunderstood about capitalism is it's not the thing that is cheapest that gets investment. The investment goes to the thing that gives you the highest ROI, return on investment.
If it produces a better ROI per square meter, it gets the investment.
The problem is capitalism.
And most often high costs mean higher ROI. The wind farm doesn't get continued funding precisely because it produces electricity when supply is high and hence prices are low. Electricity is not worth the same at all times; you can sell your coal fired watts when the wind speeds are low and the unit price jumps up. Instead of trying to solve the hard problem of storing electricity to fill the intermittency gap, capitalism takes the easy way out of burning fossil fuels unless you force it not to by regulating.
Yeah that's another issue. This video gives another generally good overview on the topic: https://youtu.be/3gSzzuY1Yw0
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/3gSzzuY1Yw0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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