Tacos = Energy!
Know it, be it, do it!
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I don’t know where you got those numbers, though it does vary by region, but It’s complicated to calculate because there’s a goverment subsidy involved (Which is planned to be phased out). Rates for residential users are calculated as consumption over a two month period:
First 150 KWhr @ .790 MXN (.004 USD)
from 150 to 280 KWh @ .956 MXN (.05 USD)
form 280 onwards @ 2.802 MXN (.15 USD)
If you want to do the math I’ll disclose my bill, nothing special about it.
Total consumption 180 KWh
Production cost 963 MXN
Subsidy -816.33 MXN
150 KWh @ 0.793 MXN = 118.95 MXN, .
30 KWh @ 0.956 MXN = 28.58 MXN
Total cost for residential user= 223 MXN (Including taxes)
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Anybody that plays video games knows the answer to this: lots of mirrors.
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Don’t forget Nigeria.
Most populous country in Africa, biggest African economy, heavily oil dependent.
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As a single user in Tijuana, I rarely hit 85MXN for a month.
I don’t know the breakdown though, because I’m on the carded system (a card that stores your consumption info, and turns the power on and off when held against the meter) and I’ve thrown my receipt away.
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What is depressing me is that if Trump saw my joke suggestion he would probably think it’s a good idea.
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A sober analysis of why it isn’t that likely to happen.
Edit - the Weinersmith’s book is one of the few pop sci books that doesn’t make me grind my teeth, though they’ve fallen a little bit for the fusion hype because they didn’t ask “and what happens to the neutrons?” But I think they’ve done a good job and I’ve bought more than one copy to give away.
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There was an article on Ars this week about two new approaches to reformation for which the byproduct is actual carbon.
Unlike other approaches I’ve seen these actually make sense, though how quickly they could scale and the capital investment is yet to be explored.
The theoretical efficiency is around 70%, but the great thing about hydrogen if you can fix the obvious downsides* is that you can burn it in a fairly clean IC engine with Diesel levels of compression, because hydrogen burns over a wide fuel air range, or use a fuel cell, giving a potential overall 35% efficiency (which is pretty good).
Given that no matter what practical things you can do the sun doesn’t shine anything like all day and the wind doesn’t blow all the time, making hydrogen from methane has the big advantage that you can store the stuff, so you can make it while the sun shines or the wind blows. Since storage is the big problem, a way of making hydrogen from methane with solid carbon as a waste product using solar electricity could actually be part of an end to end solution.
What can we do with waste carbon? Use it to infill worked out coal mines! Now there’s a virtuous cycle for you.
*At a personal level I don’t like working with hydrogen. Or mercury. Or any other stuff that can build up silently and then kill you. But a couple of days ago I was talking to a guy who spent 24 years in Army bomb disposal. And enjoyed it. With proper procedures and technology it’s amazing what can be made safe.
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Thanks for the clarification. I got the numbers from an expat forum that came up in a search. It does seem like a complicated system.
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This might be a case where Mexico’s position as the only third world country to border a rich nation works in its favor. Mexico can run power lines north and supply California and Texas. Saudi Arabia can power itself, but to sell their solar energy they need a different transmission mechanism. They need to produce something that embodies energy but can be shipped; maybe it’s a good spot for battery factories.
Russia is the biggest loser here. Russian solar production? Maybe not so good. And try as they might, they can’t stop this future.
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What about Morocco? Ceuta and Melilla are still Spanish, and while Spain is not doing well at the moment it is still rich. Gibraltar too, it may not have a land border with Morocco, but It’s only 8 miles away (although I am sure that the Spanish would rather not have their power lines going though UK territory).
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Ugh, I hate that. I narrowly avoided getting changed over.
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If we’re allowing damp “borders”, see also Oz/Timor and Oz/PNG.
If you can make it past the navy, you can do that crossing in a small open boat.
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This might be a case where Mexico’s position as the only third world country to border a rich nation works in its favor.
It isn’t clear that Mexico is a third world county. It is classified on the UN Human Development Index as having High Human Development.
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Or the Canadian oil patch. Here is some interesting analysis, on US shale dominance and the likely move in India & China to leapfrog to cleaner renewables. Not just because solar and storage are now getting as cheap or cheaper than coal but also because it reduces the horrible pollution associated with it.
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“Here comes a big hike in your cost of living” has not been a particularly saleable political platform so far.
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I used to work for an electric company. They’d send emails to the employees bragging about how much coal we used. One common conversation I’d start was about shifting to renewables. The most common sentiment at the time, 1990s, was that we couldn’t adopt cheaper energy sources because the economy is hooked on the nose candy that is fossil fuels.
“Sure it sounds nice being able to keep all that money you’re spending on energy, but if you eliminate all the related jobs, you won’t have the money to keep in the first place.”
Never quite bought that argument but I never thought I’d live to see the day we might test the hypothesis, either.
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the thing [quote=“frauenfelder, post:1, topic:111321”]
What will we do with all of this cheap energy? How do we move from fossil systems toward solar sources without destroying the social fabric of those dependent on revenue from gas and coal?
[/quote]
“our economic system is so great literally nothing can go wrong it’ll automatically fix itself”
“hey guys we made things cheaper and more efficient and sustainable and we have more resources for everyone now and less work to do”
“…this will probably make things worse in one way or another”
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Russia is potentially a big winner. Something has to provide baseload when the sun isn’t shining. Nuclear and gas outside the US.
Also, Kazakhstan.
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I’ve never thought of it this way but perhaps energy suppliers have seen solar as a threat since it would transfer political/economic “power” to suppliers in Mexico and other areas closer to the equator.
Maybe SOCPOTUS’ wall will actually be there to block people from running extension cords to Mexico. (ie keep people on the border trapped into US energy suppliers the same way we aren’t supposed to get medications from Mexico and Canada.)
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