News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by specialist on Sunday March 22, 2020 @11:59AM (#22655924)
Tangentially, this crisis may accelerate transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

Reduced demand lowers both prices and cash flow. Many operators will no longer be able to service their debts. Resulting in bankruptcy.

Coal was already in a downward spiral.

Now that crude oil is down to $30, fracking is no longer viable.

IIRC, Shale was off the board at $60/barrel.

Etc.

Even more tangentially: I support keeping our current nuke power generation running as long as possible (to ease transition to renewables). Like coal's economics, nuke aren't doing well, and will need help just to keep running.

Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by nogabebop23 on Sunday March 22, 2020 @12:13PM (#22656041)
>> Reduced demand lowers both prices and cash flow. Many operators will no longer be able to service their debts. Resulting in bankruptcy.

This is largely a result of long-term excessive supply during a period of (relatively) short-term demand reduction though. This makes the huge upfront costs in renewables very unappetizing, and their variable costs less competitive.

I think we would need a much longer demand disruption to "reset" the capital outlay decision back to one of net-new fossil vs. net-new renewable, when we would actually have a chance of switching energy streams. If demand picks up by Q3 we will just ramp up existing O&G supply.

FWIW I work in the asset planning field for energy where we are often concerned with NPV of the entire project. If you can start to get close with renewables lots of primarily fossil-based energy companies will move forward, but I don't see the numbers yet without massive subsidies or taxes.

Re:Traffic and Pollution Plummet as U.S. Cities Shut Down by the_monster on Sunday March 22, 2020 @04:05PM (#22658127)
Seems this is the strategy Saudi Arabia is adopting. They don't care anymore if the barrel of oil is 20$ because they are among the very few who can still benefit from such a low price.