Green Energy Is Cheaper…So Why Aren’t We Using It?

Solar energy is cheaper and more abundant than fossil fuels...so why aren't we making the switch?

Why Cheap Solar Won't Save Us – Second Thought

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Citations and Further Reading:

The importance of profit, not price, in renewable energy

The price of solar over time

How solar got cheap

Solar deployment and investment stalling/declining

Shell’s conditions

Returns on wind and solar investment

How much fossil giants put into renewables

Solar and wind used for fossil extraction

Asset management firms aren’t sustainable

Under capitalism production “is always initiated on the basis of prospective profit.”
Shaikh, A., 2016. Capitalism: competition, conflict, crises. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Renewables have increasingly narrow margins

Fossil Capital, Andreas Malm

Exploitation, violence in rare earth mineral mining

Where money goes in renewables

Capitalists hate competition

“Hole in the ground surrounded by guns”

Scarcity and oil prices

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About Second Thought:
Second Thought is a channel devoted to education and analysis of current events from a Leftist perspective. Welcome!

[aaronstewart]

I work in a pharmacy. This gels with what is going on in the industry. Rn, there’s a massive shortage on cancer drug generics. They cost almost nothing to make, but pharmaceutical companies have simply stopped producing them, bc they do not net the companies enough profit. Let me underscore the point: they aren’t cutting production, bc they’re *losing* profit; they’re doing so bc they’re not earning *enough* profit. On cancer drugs. Welcome to America.

[thoughtprism]

If these companies could somehow lock access to the sun behind a subscription model, they would.

[HansLemurson]

I remember realizing that part of the pushback against solar power was that it was too hard to monopolize and control. A large power station, whether coal, gas, nuclear or hydro, is a piece of centralized infrastructure, the control of which grants the owner great power and leverage.
But if anybody can just build a solar farm, or put panels on their roof? How do you control that? How do you exploit that?

[MemphisHills]

A quote I often find myself going back to when issues like this happen, and I feel really sums up our current problems;

"We can solve our problems, but it's not clear that we can solve our problems and get rich at the same time, and that is the current requirement for all solutions."

-Terence McKenna

[hello]

Every ecologist/environmental person I know is just like “the current system and structure of society has to change to mitigate climate change”
Then you have all the tech bros, comms majors, business majors, gym bros and realtors saying that we’re wrong and a little bit of improvement is some massive step.

[TheExecutiveBanana]

It's incredibly frustrating that the reason these big energy companies won't invest in renewables isn't that it won't make them money, but it won't make them enough money over an arbitrary percentage they want.

[lucysour]

It's honestly so painful to know these things and yet everyday go about your life in this system and try not to freak out.

[MindEyeMediaVR]

Profitability over sustainability? That's not economics--that's a death pact.

[jamesshepherd]

Norway is 95% hydro and also made large investments in renewables.
The result was negative electricity prices during sunny and windy hours... lol

[Prownilo]

"Why won't we save the planet?" "Because I can get richer by killing it"

[otbot]

"there is no capitalist path to climate justice" sums it up pretty well

[BonjobyBasketball]

I work for an urban and regional planning consultancy in Australia and do approvals for lots of renewable projects. We are finding that Solar farm projects often stall prior to construction phase in isolation, however, they are extremely popular when they are being relied upon to directly power specific projects. For example, there is a large rush towards green hydrogen and ammonia production in Australia currently. These projects require lots of power to opperate. It is generally more cost-effective to develop a solar farm next to one of these projects rather than upgrading existing infrastructure and purchasing power from the grid.

There is hope for Renewables yet.

[lebaronmarcus]

I've been an engineer in the renewable energy field for 15 years, and I'd never heard this problem expressed so clearly. Thank you Second Thought!

[kurisu]

This makes me think of when Phillips released a light bulb that would last two years, while there is a light bulb in a California firehouse that's been in constant use since 1901.
We could have had much longer lasting light bulbs for well over a hundred years, but something you buy and use for decades isn't as profitable as something that only lasts a few years, and we see this with way too many products. We have refrigerators that work from around 90 years ago but ones today might fail after just a few years.
It's not profitable to make something that lasts a long time, it's more profitable to make something you need to constantly replace, and since once it's burned it's gone they make sure fossil fuels are something we constantly need.

[climate_change_solutions]

I think his point is not that renewables aren't profitable enough to be a good business, it is that fossil fuels are currently more profitable than renewables so large energy players are prioritizing fossil fuels. Smaller companies can still make money doing renewables but the bulk of the institutional money and political pressure is on the fossil fuel side which slows the growth rate of renewables to below what we need it to be

[aidandersonX]

I love that the system designed to breed efficiency and racing to the bottom in term of costs actively obstructs the cheapest option.

[targe]

You have heard of rainbow capitalism 🇺🇲, now get ready for green capitalism 🤑

[leaguemastergg]

16:07 There are a lot of problems with hydro power as well, although they tend to be more insidious. Like fewer nutrients in rivers lowering fish populations, less sediment in the rivers decreasing farm fertility, and causing river deltas to shrink which then causes local wildlife populations to decline, increased flooding and ocean pollution because the deltas basically function like a sponge soaking up water and pollution.

[JoshuaNeeley]

Kind of odd that they were able to set profitability goals right outside the range of the product. It's almost like they studied it awhile back and hid it from the public -.-

[jose.montojah]

Remember "infinite growth" is a strategy that dries up colonies of different species on Petri dishes