I have to wonder why hydro is always left out of the solar+wind clean energy statistics. Is it just because it’s old tech?
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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I assume it's a matter of universal scalability. There's a limited number of viable hydro projects, whereas solar and wind power is just a question of scaling up production generally. Most places are viable for at least one of the two.
Finland has built so much wind turbines that in the summer when it's windy and warm electricity is sometimes literally free but in the winter the coldest days are usually also the ones when there's no wind and the prices can get incredibly high. We definitely need more energy storage and - in my opinion - nuclear power.
I used to be on team "we really need nuclear", and maybe that was true at one point in time, but the production scale of solar and wind and energy storage have reached the point where it is 100% viable to power a modern nation without it.
You can't even complain about the land use taking away from agriculture anymore either - agriculture and agrivoltaics have advanced enough to make that a moot point too.
Perhaps, but in a country like mine there are long stretches when it's really cold so demand is sky high but the sun barely shines for months and when it's calm too, solar and wind production drop to basically zero. Storage helps smooth things out, but that energy still has to come from somewhere.
Solar with storage has an EROEI of 4:1, nevermind dunkelflaute. Too low to power a complex industrial society.
Solar with storage has an EROEI of 4:1,
This is a worst-case estimate, a properly distributed system of storage gets an eroei of up to 15:1, which is equivalent to fossil fuels with far fewer externalities.
Nuclear can get more, true, but the externalities are pretty bad compared to panels and wind farms.
We dont'need nuclear, just more batteries
Battery + solar technology has advanced phenomenally in the past couple decades. We've already reached the point where solar + storage is cheaper than nuclear, even as far north as Sweden.
Save for niche applications, Nuclear energy is borderline redundant. Along with the classic points against nuclear (mining, meltdowns, waste), renewables are inherently more decentralised which promotes community ownership and reduces need for expensive infrastructure, plus it's about 10x faster to set up.
Well that settles it then.
Do the math on weeks worth of batteries. Gas turbines run on hydrogen is the only option right now.
A combination of solar, wind, geothermal (when possible) and tidal (when possible) should hopefully mean you don't need weeks of batteries.
The 2026 Middle East War is likely to be the last in human history where a disruption to fossil fuels means a major global economic impact. By the 2030s, both China and Europe will be well on their way to totally decarbonising their economies, and Chinese manufacturing exports of renewable tech will be doing the same for much of the rest of the world. The age of fossil fuels will be disappearing in the rear-view mirror.
The longer the war goes on, the more renewables win. It will be clear they mean cheap, reliable, clean, and freedom from global instability. Tens of millions of people around the world who have cars to buy in 2026 will be looking at EVs with new appreciation.
I agree! I'm quite hopeful about this because I think the instability in fossil fuel supply has been quite the wake up call for Europe. Time to go big on renewables. Just to be sure, we're cutting it close but it helps to see data that shows that we're headed in the right direction. It's also crazy how much good will I think the Chinese will create in the global south by helping them to electrify reliably, something that can be done very incrementally with solar instead of the "jumpier" more discretized introduction of a massive power plant every so many years.