Comment by somethoughts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somethoughts | Hacker News Reader

My hot take is now that most of the climate change focused people are on board with solar+battery its time to shift the story to focus on the benefits that will accrue - irrespective of climate change.

Solar+grid scale batteries could lead to true energy independence. It would provides optionality in energy sources that can provide energy pricing stability in times of crisis as well as enable lower long term negotiated prices overall.

If OPEC is opportunistically price gouging oil, solar+battery can step in. If China is opportunistically hoarding solar panels and battery raw materials, we can look to OPEC to provide a price ceiling.

I'd rather be dependent on OPEC+China and be able to play them off each other than just be solely dependent on OPEC.

For national security, US reserves should be kept in the ground as long as possible in case of true emergencies. I never got the narrative that we should be pumping it now and selling it on the open market.

Oil prices has been swinging between 60-100 for the last 10 years. I think it's oil refineries are using OPEC excuse to increase the price.

The USA drills as much as we consume. We drill more oil compared to Saudis and Russia

Why would oil refineries do that? Unless they are all acting as a cartel to fix prices, it would be obvious that some are more expensive than others for no reason. Price fixing doesn't work with price competition.

If they are acting as a cartel and coordinating among every refinery, how do you keep that hidden? You can't and the reward isn't worth being screwed by antitrust and all other backlash when you get caught.

Obviously petrochemical refineries are going set prices to maximize profits. They don't need any excuse to do that.

In the US, existing refineries have significant pricing power because environmental laws have made it nearly impossible to build new ones. The issue is compounded in California by idiotic state laws that mandate a unique blend of gasoline only produced by a handful of refineries. This ends up being effectively a direct wealth transfer from consumers to refinery owners without even achieving any significant environment benefits.

How are batteries going to lead us to energy independence when many of the key raw materials are mined in foreign countries?

Grid scale batteries are still aways out and still have to prove themselves at scale but a promising one is made out of materials that are sourced universally - such as iron. [1]

If lithium is battery substrate of choice then the actual raw materials suppliers are more numerous and are not highly correlated to OPEC members. So you get relative energy independence. As far as I know there is not any sort of lithium cartel that has formed as of yet.

Additionally as I understand it - since for grid scale, density is not a factor - there is not as strong a need for rare earth metals. [2]

[1] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-battery-renew... [2] https://www.energy-storage.news/comparing-six-types-of-lithi...

The USA is already mostly energy independent of OPEC, so from that perspective nothing would change.

From my perspective at least, I lump in US oil producers as part of OPEC and less as part of the US.

Due to the transportability of oil and the existence of a spot oil market, in times of high global/US oil demand, the US oil producers will sell out to the highest bidder and export our oil and basically take the profits at the expense of US energy users. [1]

Oil/LNG prices are a global market whereas solar+battery is a regional market unless grids are set up.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

Once you have the battery materials you don't need any more. You can recharge or recycle the battery.

Compare with fossil fuels, which can only be used once.

For national security, US reserves should be kept in the ground as long as possible in case of true emergencies

I think this is the sort of argument that a lot of right wing folks would buy into. This needs to get into the national debate.

The argument kind of falls apart considering we already do that. The Strategic Petroleum Reserves diverts oil drilled and refined using vulnerable infrastructure that could take decades to setup into deep salt caverns that can be filled and drained near instantly. Expanding our reserves would just involve more drilling so we can fill more random mines and caverns.

Wouldn't leaving it in the ground to be tapped in a time of war be a lot simpler?

It would be simpler now but more complex at a time of war. You would want as little complexity as possible during a time of war.

The nuance is that the SPR only diverts a small fraction of the oil drilled annually. The majority as I understand it is used for immediate US consumption.

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