Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheaper than coal

Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by ZeroGravitas on Monday January 29, 2018 @02:31PM (#16259994)

There's also the fundamental mistake that not all energy is equal.

Energy in the form of electricity is far more useful than energy in other forms as it can be used directly. With other forms it will generally need to be converted first, with massive efficiency losses which are ignored by EROEI proponents.

So for example while oil might be said to have an EROEI of 14.5, it loses 80% of that when used for the common purpose of turning a cars wheels, giving only a 2.9. generally those who quote EROEI numbers would claim this makes industrial society a literal impossibility.

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Re:Plunging costs make solar, wind and battery storage cheap... by maoistinquisitr on Monday January 29, 2018 @02:46PM (#16260099)

All analysis I've seen indicates pretty much the opposite. Electricity is way less useful than diesel fuel. Our civilization critically runs on diesel and no one has figured out an even theoretically viable way to substitute in batteries where diesel is used in logistics, resource extraction, and pumping.

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