Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumSolar doing so well in Australia, they are offering electricity for free at times:
Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative
— Mark Lemley (@marklemley.bsky.social) 2025-11-06T04:58:10.332Z
electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...
UpInArms
(53,716 posts)Solar and wind are truly a good clean future
rurallib
(64,403 posts)Uncle Joe
(63,652 posts)Thanks for the thread applegrove
hunter
(40,181 posts)... and raise overall electricity prices for everyone on the grid.
It's no coincidence that places with aggressive "renewable" energy policies tend to have very expensive electricity. Solar and wind energy may be "free" but integrating them into an electric grid and providing "backup" power when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining costs some serious money.
The average price of electricity in nuclear powered France is about half what it is in Germany or California. When the price of electricity drops to "free" it means all those solar panels and wind turbines are loosing money and this kills any economic incentives to build more.
The amount of energy storage that would be required to go "all renewable, all year" is entirely ludicrous.
The reality is that solar and wind energy are dependent on fossil fuels for their economic viability. They are not capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely, which is what we need to do.
Like it or not the only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely is nuclear power.