This is a topic not related to NEM.
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solution to climate change is type of energy we use and here it is. Nothing else matters
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thatās actually not true at all. there is not a strong correlation between use of renewable sources and carbon emissions. Crazy as that sounds. once installed there is no marginal cost to produce more electricity from renewable sources (the costs are fixed no matter how much is generated). this leads to an increase in consumption in order to maximize the utility of the installation. you can research it yourself, but hereās a clue:Iceland. They get 90% of their energy from renewables? See if you can spot where they switched to renewables? You canāt because at that point they just sold that energy for 1/4 the price it was in Europe to attract heavy industry. They used their āfreeā energy to subsidize aluminium smelters probably leading to even more production/consumption. What really cause Icelandās CO2 emissions to drop? Economic recession.
Itās not a simple problem. Every angle needs to be addressed, especially demand management. Itās a much more complicated but arguably more important mitigation strategy than simply changing the energy source as changing the source is not correlated with reducing emissions (on a national level).
There is another Ted talk about how solar and wind destroy environment and kill wild life. and sun donāt shine at night and wind doesnāt blow all the time.
Iceland uses geothermal I believe, correct me if I am wrong, which is more reliable than solar and wind, hence all the crypto mining in Iceland.
and all the aluminium smelting
Renewable energy generated may not guarantee help to reduce the carbon emissions, but at least can reduce the demand from conventional coal power plants which every countries try not to rely on the fossil fuels unstable pricing. Energy efficiency (with RE as replacement) must be encouraged to help further reduced the demand of more coal power plants.Thus, all this efforts from the government point of view will enable the transformation of energy uses and hence can archive the target as rectified in the Paris Agreement
Yes, I see what you mean. It varies by country. Here in East China, there is significant hydro production, what does it lead to? Low electricity prices. Coal cosumption is unchanged I dug out the study for anyone who is interested, renewables or nuclear are not the answer. TLDR is that there is no correlation between reducing fossil fuel consumption and reducing co2 emissions. Humans are freakinā crazy.
The system is broken. Renewables are just easier to market for big investment. Once theyāre installed, itās off to the races to see how much extra production you can capture with the cheaper unit cost electricity.