Climate

This is dead wrong (edit: kind of; see below). The dollars per million BTU for natural gas this February was $3.62, or 32% of the figure cited in the infographic. You're thinking of oil.

Solar is clearly more sustainable, economical, independent, and most importantly livable than LNG, but I still need to call out flawed assumptions on my side where I see them.

Edit: I actually have no idea how this infographic reached its $11 assumption. Wholesale prices for natural gas were $4.88 per MMBtu in 2024. Emphasis on "wholesale", but since this infographic doesn't deign to cite any sources other than "Ember" (this Ember?), I have no idea what figure it means.

Edit 2: After doing way too much digging into how global LNG prices are measured because this infographic barely even leaves breadcrumbs, they might've been using a metric like the JKMc1 ("LNG Japan/Korea Marker PLATTS Future") (edit 3: or the TFAc1). The prices of natural gas (transported via pipeline) and LNG (transported via ship) are going to be quite different, and there's no consistent "global average price" for LNG. The best you can really do is use some sort of proxy, for which it appears the JKMc1 is a reasonable one for reasons I don't fully understand yet. That was approximately $11 in 2024 (it was actually seemingly higher, but close enough; probably close but separate figures) and was $10.73 this February. It was $15.92 March 1, showing at least in East Asia that LNG is about 50% more expensive than last month. I don't know how well that applies to Lemmy's predominantly American and European userbase, however (well, I know the US now supplies about 60% of Europe's LNG and that American natural gas is currently cheaper).

God, it's so frustrating that this infographic barely cites anything. Anyway, to the person I responded to: you were at least somewhat right; the closing of the Strait seems to have clearly impacted East Asia... somehow. Iran and Qatar are the 3rd and 6th largest natural gas producers, respectively (no clue about LNG shipments), but I feel like I'll end up with a doctoral thesis on the geopolitics of LNG prices by 2030 from knowing basically nothing if I don't stop here. What all this does tell me is that an estimate of "global average price for LNG" means very little when prices per MMBtu (liquified or otherwise) seem to vary so heavily by region.

When is it ever a bad time?

I missed it when it made the rounds a few weeks back. Thanks for sharing again!

How do the solar panels generate constant fees?

You see, people need to pay for electricity. Generally speaking, they don't get it for free. Thus the owner of the solar panels makes money.

Agreed. A more telling graph would incorporate socialized losses, including subsidies, life-and-limb for related industries, quality of life, and life expectancy. I sincerely doubt these costs for the construction, manufacture, and installation of solar panels comes anywhere close to that of petroleum products.

Then as a stickler you should probably clarify that 20yrs isn’t the lifespan of a panel but the simply the end of most warranty periods.

The panel itself is (typically) fine, just less efficient after so long.

Solar panels are easily recyclable as are a lot of batteries once infrastructure catches up. You burn that gas and its gone.

Millions of acres are used for corn to produce ethanol mixes for gas. All of this land is under direct sun. Also wind. This again is because of corn subsidies in the US.

The amount of money tied up in oil companies is second only to the military industrial complex. If we took that money to put toward renewable, we would solve a shit ton of issues.

Yes voltage drop exists. However , you know we have electrical lines to basically every structure in the US right? Even Joe blow in the absolute middle of nowhere has power lines. The grid is already here. We need to invest in it and improve it (also destroy data centers but thats a different discussion)

Also, panels dont just abruptly die after 20 years. They slowly start losing efficiency. You could be using a 30 year old panel, and it could be at 70% efficiency depending on degradation (*I can't say if 70% is accurate , I'd have to research it). Again, gas is burned up and used instantly, one time. Panel gets old, recycle it.

But we don't do things because they're good. We do them because they're profitable. Capitalism breeds innovation right?

The beauty of solar though is its pretty deployable to where the demand is, especially rooftop solar with residential batteries.

We can't transport the solar power from Texas to Michigan the same way we can truck gas across state lines.

Batteries?

Then use the next $100M for developing energy storage infrastructure... Or split the upfront cost evenly between generation/storage. Gotta think longer term than a single years's balance sheet. Anything you build now saves you money in the future instead of shoveling it into a literal incinerator.

Also, that's a year for the solar panels to get 1.5 TWh but the tanker probably makes that in a month.

Okay, waiting for economics to take over then. If the markets really do work the way economists imagine then solar will become the only viable investment and power dynamics won't matter in the end.

Me shouting the answer, but you can't hear it over the bombs exploding across the Straight of Hormuz