'Unstoppable force' of solar power propels world to 40% clean electricity(news.sky.com)
news.sky.com
'Unstoppable force' of solar power propels world to 40% clean electricity
https://news.sky.com/story/unstoppable-force-of-solar-power-propels-world-to-40-clean-electricity-report-finds-13344230
213 comments
The economics have shifted. It used to be that solar or wind were more experimental, and lacked any economies of scale. Their production was poor and less was known about how they fared in the long term.
Now, their prices have gone down, their generation per unit has gone up, and much more is known about how they behave long-term.
The world has a LOT of power generation. It will take time to replace. But with every time that some existing power generation source shuts down due to age, or expansion occurs somewhere, it will inevitably be done with solar/wind. It's just more cost effective now.
In the end it is not environmental concerns that will cause solar and wind to become commonplace. It's just economics. Slapping down something that generates power for 20-30 years with no input fuel is just way more economically feasible than anything that requires fuel. They still have maintenance costs, but it's nothing by comparison. They can completely undercut other sources of power.
Now, their prices have gone down, their generation per unit has gone up, and much more is known about how they behave long-term.
The world has a LOT of power generation. It will take time to replace. But with every time that some existing power generation source shuts down due to age, or expansion occurs somewhere, it will inevitably be done with solar/wind. It's just more cost effective now.
In the end it is not environmental concerns that will cause solar and wind to become commonplace. It's just economics. Slapping down something that generates power for 20-30 years with no input fuel is just way more economically feasible than anything that requires fuel. They still have maintenance costs, but it's nothing by comparison. They can completely undercut other sources of power.
Exactly. This is what people keep underestimating. The way we currently generate power is expensive and inefficient. A lot of what we do is energy intensive. Which means it requires a lot of money to do.
Transport is a good example. A long distance truck can take up to 300 gallons of diesel. It will drive quite far on that. But that's over 1000$. A well utilized truck goes through well over 100K$ of fuel per year. That's a lot of money.
Enter electric trucks. Yes they have range limitations (depending on their battery size). But they don't use up 100K $ worth of electricity per year burning over 1M $ of fuel over it's lifespan. Not to mention all the maintenance and parts associated with keeping diesel engines going.
Solar/wind/battery power has essentially no marginal cost. Electric trucks powered by that still have some marginal cost but it's a lot lower than that of a diesel truck. And even at current grid prices (typically determined by the cost of fossil fuels), it's probably earning itself back. What happens when diesel trucks follow the same cost curve that EVs went through? You don't need to be a genius to figure out that there are going to be a lot of truckers and trucking companies that can't afford to stick with diesel for very long when everybody starts decimating their fuel expenses.
That's just trucks. The same kind of economics are happening across pretty much every sector that can feasibly be electrified. It's not all happening at once. But probably in hind sight in a few decades it will have happened very quickly. One moment everybody was mostly burning diesel, petrol, methane, and coal and a few short decades later all of that is gone because it became way too costly to continue doing any of that.
Transport is a good example. A long distance truck can take up to 300 gallons of diesel. It will drive quite far on that. But that's over 1000$. A well utilized truck goes through well over 100K$ of fuel per year. That's a lot of money.
Enter electric trucks. Yes they have range limitations (depending on their battery size). But they don't use up 100K $ worth of electricity per year burning over 1M $ of fuel over it's lifespan. Not to mention all the maintenance and parts associated with keeping diesel engines going.
Solar/wind/battery power has essentially no marginal cost. Electric trucks powered by that still have some marginal cost but it's a lot lower than that of a diesel truck. And even at current grid prices (typically determined by the cost of fossil fuels), it's probably earning itself back. What happens when diesel trucks follow the same cost curve that EVs went through? You don't need to be a genius to figure out that there are going to be a lot of truckers and trucking companies that can't afford to stick with diesel for very long when everybody starts decimating their fuel expenses.
That's just trucks. The same kind of economics are happening across pretty much every sector that can feasibly be electrified. It's not all happening at once. But probably in hind sight in a few decades it will have happened very quickly. One moment everybody was mostly burning diesel, petrol, methane, and coal and a few short decades later all of that is gone because it became way too costly to continue doing any of that.
For OTR trucks, you have to factor in the battery degradation. A OTR truck easily gets to 1 million miles on an engine. Often times significantly more, and then its only a rebuild, not a replacement. While electricity is much cheaper than diesel, battery replacement cost amortization is a real thing to include in the accounting. I haven't done an OTR, but I did do amortization for a Ford Lightning. While a "battery fill up" is $2-3. The replacement battery is $30k iirc. That's $3000/yr in costs assuming 10 year lifetime. At that rate, its $62/wk in battery amortization. So, you're really spending $62+3/wk in "energy". That's still less than a tank ($90-100 at current prices), but the savings is significantly less than originally anticipated.
A LiFePo4 battery gets > 750,000 miles. That's what people are going to be putting into high mileage trucks.
Nobody is going to put a $30K battery into a Ford Lightning. After 10 years that battery is probably $3K. If it isn't and you're unhappy with the ~80% battery capacity it has after 10 years of usage, you sell it on to somebody who is happy with ~80%. You don't spend more than the truck is worth replacing the battery.
Nobody is going to put a $30K battery into a Ford Lightning. After 10 years that battery is probably $3K. If it isn't and you're unhappy with the ~80% battery capacity it has after 10 years of usage, you sell it on to somebody who is happy with ~80%. You don't spend more than the truck is worth replacing the battery.
Bingo. At this point the biggest cost to owning EV (in NZ) now is taxes and insurance, not fuel and maintenance.
Sweden and Germany have phantograph-powered semi-electric trucks [1] that would make this less of a factor. The trucks do the bulk of their driving off grid power with batteries for exits/lastmile components of the drive.
[1]: https://www.carsguide.com.au/oversteer/phantograph-scania-tr...
Tom Scott video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
[1]: https://www.carsguide.com.au/oversteer/phantograph-scania-tr...
Tom Scott video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
I feel setting this up and maintaining is far more expensive than extra batteries. Maybe it does enable some new possibilities tho so might be worth it.
In Germany the short test tracks (less than 20km)have been built back. There are no plans to build new ones, or in operational status.
:( well that's disappointing. it seemed like such an obvious extension to me the first time I saw it.
Of course you have to take that into account. But it doesn't really change the math a lot.
BTW. I was talking about semis, not pickup trucks which is not really a common vehicle class in Europe where I live. People that use vehicles for work tend to use vans and trailers instead.
In any case, diesel engines get a lot of servicing (and unplanned down time) before they reach their 1 million miles. And the engine has many parts that need regular attention & replacing. An electrical motor is basically going to be fine with little to no attention until its end of life. Batteries do degrade depending on the chemistry. But decent LFP batteries are available now with many thousands of cycles before they start degrading. Other than that, the whole drive train just features a lot less moving parts that can break or wear out. Things like brakes, suspension, hydraulics, etc. of course work the same way and still need servicing.
And again, if you are burning > 100K$ fuel per year, replacing the battery once every few years is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. And this wouldn't come as a surprise either if you run a fleet of these things. You'd plan and budget for that to happen.
And it's not like the old batteries are a complete write off. They have a lot of residual value. Even if they are completely dead, which they typically aren't, they would still contain a lot of valuable minerals (like a couple of hundred kilos of lithium), lots of copper, etc.
With battery cost now dipping below 100$/kwh and actually trending towards 50$/kwh, we're talking about component cost of 25-50K$ for a half mwh battery for the manufacturer. The real price would be higher of course (labor, various suppliers taking a cut, electronics and other stuff) but over time that should get closer to the cost price than is the case today. And that cost price will come down further.
BTW. I was talking about semis, not pickup trucks which is not really a common vehicle class in Europe where I live. People that use vehicles for work tend to use vans and trailers instead.
In any case, diesel engines get a lot of servicing (and unplanned down time) before they reach their 1 million miles. And the engine has many parts that need regular attention & replacing. An electrical motor is basically going to be fine with little to no attention until its end of life. Batteries do degrade depending on the chemistry. But decent LFP batteries are available now with many thousands of cycles before they start degrading. Other than that, the whole drive train just features a lot less moving parts that can break or wear out. Things like brakes, suspension, hydraulics, etc. of course work the same way and still need servicing.
And again, if you are burning > 100K$ fuel per year, replacing the battery once every few years is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. And this wouldn't come as a surprise either if you run a fleet of these things. You'd plan and budget for that to happen.
And it's not like the old batteries are a complete write off. They have a lot of residual value. Even if they are completely dead, which they typically aren't, they would still contain a lot of valuable minerals (like a couple of hundred kilos of lithium), lots of copper, etc.
With battery cost now dipping below 100$/kwh and actually trending towards 50$/kwh, we're talking about component cost of 25-50K$ for a half mwh battery for the manufacturer. The real price would be higher of course (labor, various suppliers taking a cut, electronics and other stuff) but over time that should get closer to the cost price than is the case today. And that cost price will come down further.
There's an Australian company that converts trucks and says "the Janus fleet electrification solution will provide for up to a 60% reduction in maintenance and operating costs over the vehicle's lifetime." https://www.januselectric.com.au/
They are in operation on a number of large trucks.
They are in operation on a number of large trucks.
Although it is unknown how much battery rebuild prices can/will come down. It seems unlikely they will go up though.
this is more of a problem with trucking in general than with electric vehicles. shipping goods long distances by road is just inherently wasteful of both material and labor.
Rail is not scaled to do transport of consumer goods, and is not scalable to a higher level in North America. What are those who don't live on the coasts supposed to do, do you think?
idk maybe ask switzerland, or the united states before 1980
Neither of these would be illuminating. Switzerland's like the size of Rhode Island. And the United States prior to 1980 had much the same rail as today... not much was added at any point in the latter half of the 20th century.
Rail at best connects major cities, and a few minor ones. It is largely at capacity for the industries it serves, and moving retail freight to big box stores simply isn't possible. There are no knobs to turn or levers to pull to change that.
Rail at best connects major cities, and a few minor ones. It is largely at capacity for the industries it serves, and moving retail freight to big box stores simply isn't possible. There are no knobs to turn or levers to pull to change that.
Ok, I'll elaborate.
US freight railroads used to carry a larger variety of goods and serve a larger variety of customers than they do today. They were never in the business of delivering finished goods directly to retail stores, but they did transport a large amount of single-carload and less-than-carload deliveries between factories and warehouses. This is why if you visit older industrial areas you will see train tracks everywhere, including in the middle of the street and sometimes directly into buildings.
When the trucking industry was deregulated in 1980, trucking companies undercut railroads on low-volume high-profit routes, leaving the railroads to focus on low-value bulk goods like coal. The total volume of freight actually went up, but both revenue per unit and gross revenue fell. The railroads struggled to justify the cost of maintenance on now less busy lines, so they abandoned many of them and neglected the maintenance on others. That made it impossible to win back the lost business from the trucking industry even as the cost of trucking skyrocketed. Everyone is now worse off except for the owners of the trucking companies.
As for Switzerland, they invented a special kind of shipping container and that can be loaded/unloaded from a train or truck with no need for a crane. This allows them to make carload and intermodal deliveries without building any new infrastructure.
https://actsag.ch/index.php/de/system
US freight railroads used to carry a larger variety of goods and serve a larger variety of customers than they do today. They were never in the business of delivering finished goods directly to retail stores, but they did transport a large amount of single-carload and less-than-carload deliveries between factories and warehouses. This is why if you visit older industrial areas you will see train tracks everywhere, including in the middle of the street and sometimes directly into buildings.
When the trucking industry was deregulated in 1980, trucking companies undercut railroads on low-volume high-profit routes, leaving the railroads to focus on low-value bulk goods like coal. The total volume of freight actually went up, but both revenue per unit and gross revenue fell. The railroads struggled to justify the cost of maintenance on now less busy lines, so they abandoned many of them and neglected the maintenance on others. That made it impossible to win back the lost business from the trucking industry even as the cost of trucking skyrocketed. Everyone is now worse off except for the owners of the trucking companies.
As for Switzerland, they invented a special kind of shipping container and that can be loaded/unloaded from a train or truck with no need for a crane. This allows them to make carload and intermodal deliveries without building any new infrastructure.
https://actsag.ch/index.php/de/system
Solar and wind have economies of scale and always have.
How Big Projects Get Done describes roads, wind and solar as three of the top five projects types for likelihood to come in on time and on budget.
Why? The first pour and the last pour on making a road are substantially the same. The people working on it get better at doing so as they go. They iterate on the process and reduce waste. Solar and wind are installing the same structures 10, 20, 50 times so they go fast once they start and the scope can be adjusted up or down as long as you have contracts in place.
Building a nuclear plant takes for-fucking-ever, there are a million different tasks to do, and they are built so far apart that getting the same team to build another means a long commute and a different local government to contend with every time. So budgeting is difficult.
How Big Projects Get Done describes roads, wind and solar as three of the top five projects types for likelihood to come in on time and on budget.
Why? The first pour and the last pour on making a road are substantially the same. The people working on it get better at doing so as they go. They iterate on the process and reduce waste. Solar and wind are installing the same structures 10, 20, 50 times so they go fast once they start and the scope can be adjusted up or down as long as you have contracts in place.
Building a nuclear plant takes for-fucking-ever, there are a million different tasks to do, and they are built so far apart that getting the same team to build another means a long commute and a different local government to contend with every time. So budgeting is difficult.
Can we get the Dept of Energy to build plants themselves on Federal land?
That doesn't really solve any of those problems.
What you actually need is mass production, and a regulatory environment that facilitates the same, e.g. by putting most of the certification in the design phase and then making production certification limited to the matter of whether what was built follows the certified spec.
The ideal would be to limit the on-site construction to common fungible commodities like pouring concrete and have any reactor-specific components mass produced in a factory. Then the same factory can be producing components for reactors whether they're going up in New York or Seattle or London and you get your economies of scale.
What you actually need is mass production, and a regulatory environment that facilitates the same, e.g. by putting most of the certification in the design phase and then making production certification limited to the matter of whether what was built follows the certified spec.
The ideal would be to limit the on-site construction to common fungible commodities like pouring concrete and have any reactor-specific components mass produced in a factory. Then the same factory can be producing components for reactors whether they're going up in New York or Seattle or London and you get your economies of scale.
That would help too. I was thinking about the permitting issues with local authorities. Also having a permanent Federal team that does this (perhaps even in other countries?) would seem like a good way to retain institutional knowledge that would otherwise get lost if each project were a bespoke private investment project.
Which has always been the explicit goal of many solar subsidies across the world over the last 20 years: generate substantial demand for the technology while it's still expensive and risky, phase out subsidies as the price comes down. It worked beautifully
It was Germany’s gift to the world. They stopped it just in time to kill their industry too, giving another gift to china
Storage capacity on the grid will need to massively increase as well for solar to go much further.
Solar is nowhere near hitting limits that will require storage to continue growth. Like it could double several more times globally and not require storage to still make sense to roll out more.
But, storage is already growing at a pace similar to solar because it's cheaper than the alternatives.
But, storage is already growing at a pace similar to solar because it's cheaper than the alternatives.
The bulk of storage on the grid is just pumped hydro, everything else is literally a drop in the bucket. Some people like to make the argument that battery storage can grow enough to become relevant but that's just speculation, it hasn't happened so far.
Global grid BESS has caught up on Hydro capacity (which is an ambiguous word in this domain i.e. the amount that can be delivered at any one instant).
It's absorbing a third of California's generation at solar peak and then delivering a third of demand in the evening.
The future is here, just not everywhere yet.
It's absorbing a third of California's generation at solar peak and then delivering a third of demand in the evening.
The future is here, just not everywhere yet.
> It's absorbing a third of California's generation at solar peak and then delivering a third of demand in the evening.
Citations:
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-beats-the-heat/#batteries-e...
https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2024-08-25/b...
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO/72h/hourly
Citations:
https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-beats-the-heat/#batteries-e...
https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2024-08-25/b...
https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...
https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-CAL-CISO/72h/hourly
It's still not clear how this is supposed to work for heating load.
Covering the incremental evening demand peak is one thing. Converting fuel oil and natural gas-based heating to electric and then covering the nighttime winter heating load in northern latitudes is something else entirely.
Covering the incremental evening demand peak is one thing. Converting fuel oil and natural gas-based heating to electric and then covering the nighttime winter heating load in northern latitudes is something else entirely.
Between better insulation[0], and north-south grid connections[1], I'm not sure this is a huge issue.
Yes, there are going to be places like Nuorgam in Finland where a population of 200 may turn out to be non-economical to put on the same suitably upgraded HVDC grid as everyone else, but they're also not getting e.g. a dedicated nuclear reactor any time soon.
Yes, that does still leave oil and gas in such places. Or would, if the oil and gas remained economical to supply internationally when the majority of users worldwide stop using it. Biofuels (e.g. wood in a fireplace) is still a thing, even if not fantastic for either health or environment. I have no idea if we're going to see other long-term chemistry-based solutions, people keep talking about ammonia but it's too far out of my knowledge to argue for or against.
[0] I'm 52° north and for the last 6 months was wearing T-shirts indoors for an average of 17 kWh per day (for everything: heating, hot water, appliances, tech) even though there were a few times I accidentally left a huge window open for hours. It's very well insulated and has a heat pump.
[1] Longer days closer to the equator. North tip of Lapland has 52 days without sunrise in winter[2], but it's just a question of "how much money and what's the cheaper alternative" for a grid connection that ultimately ends up in the Sahara where the winter solstice day length is 10 hours[3].
[2] https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2023/what-polar-night-exp...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Tataouine+sunrise+21+De...
Yes, there are going to be places like Nuorgam in Finland where a population of 200 may turn out to be non-economical to put on the same suitably upgraded HVDC grid as everyone else, but they're also not getting e.g. a dedicated nuclear reactor any time soon.
Yes, that does still leave oil and gas in such places. Or would, if the oil and gas remained economical to supply internationally when the majority of users worldwide stop using it. Biofuels (e.g. wood in a fireplace) is still a thing, even if not fantastic for either health or environment. I have no idea if we're going to see other long-term chemistry-based solutions, people keep talking about ammonia but it's too far out of my knowledge to argue for or against.
[0] I'm 52° north and for the last 6 months was wearing T-shirts indoors for an average of 17 kWh per day (for everything: heating, hot water, appliances, tech) even though there were a few times I accidentally left a huge window open for hours. It's very well insulated and has a heat pump.
[1] Longer days closer to the equator. North tip of Lapland has 52 days without sunrise in winter[2], but it's just a question of "how much money and what's the cheaper alternative" for a grid connection that ultimately ends up in the Sahara where the winter solstice day length is 10 hours[3].
[2] https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2023/what-polar-night-exp...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Tataouine+sunrise+21+De...
It's not clear how north-south grid connections are supposed to address this. You can create a long-distance transmission line from New York to Florida, but it's winter in Florida at the same time as it's winter in New York. Can you create a long distance transmission line from New York to Brazil? Even if you could in theory, probably not in practice, and even regardless of the technical factors nobody is going to want that kind of cross-border dependency for something as important as heating.
> You can create a long-distance transmission line from New York to Florida, but it's winter in Florida at the same time as it's winter in New York.
On 21 December, the day is about 77 minutes longer in Miami than in NYC, and panels in Miami aren't going to be covered in snow.
> Can you create a long distance transmission line from New York to Brazil?
Yes. $$$.
Spend enough (production is high enough for this, yes I have checked, it's just how much money you want to spend) and it could be from NYC to Perth Australia.
> Even if you could in theory, probably not in practice, and even regardless of the technical factors nobody is going to want that kind of cross-border dependency for something as important as heating.
Also true. Unfortunately.
On 21 December, the day is about 77 minutes longer in Miami than in NYC, and panels in Miami aren't going to be covered in snow.
> Can you create a long distance transmission line from New York to Brazil?
Yes. $$$.
Spend enough (production is high enough for this, yes I have checked, it's just how much money you want to spend) and it could be from NYC to Perth Australia.
> Even if you could in theory, probably not in practice, and even regardless of the technical factors nobody is going to want that kind of cross-border dependency for something as important as heating.
Also true. Unfortunately.
Just repurposing that gas used for heating to generating electricity for heat pumps is a big step forward, delivering more heat for less gas and synergises well with wind and batteries which further reduce gas usage.
Gas boilers are now the leading source of NOx pollution in London since they've made so much progress on traffic sources.
Gas boilers are now the leading source of NOx pollution in London since they've made so much progress on traffic sources.
Well sure, but if the premise is that we're going to replace everything with solar and batteries, that one's the hard one.
Whereas heat pumps powered by nuclear reactors work pretty well, if you could get the cost of nuclear reactors under control by getting mass production going.
Whereas heat pumps powered by nuclear reactors work pretty well, if you could get the cost of nuclear reactors under control by getting mass production going.
https://thedriven.io/2025/03/25/byd-leads-unstoppable-charge... ("In 2024, 3,100 GWh of fully commissioned battery-cell manufacturing capacity was online, more than 2.5x that of annual demand. This has driven massive demand growth for EVs and stationary energy storage (BESS) systems globally, with China continuing to dominate.")
Global BESS deployments soared 53% in 2024 - https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-soar... - January 14, 2025 ("Storage installations in 2024 beat expectations with 205GWh installed globally, a staggering y-o-y increase of 53%. The grid market has once again been the driver of growth, with more than 160GWh deployed globally, of which 98% was lithium-ion.")
China’s Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-09/china-... | https://archive.today/DklaA - July 9, 2024
China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-... | https://archive.today/8Dy4D - April 12, 2024
Global BESS deployments to exceed 400GWh annually by 2030, says Rystad Energy - https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-to-e... - June 15, 2023
Global BESS deployments soared 53% in 2024 - https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-soar... - January 14, 2025 ("Storage installations in 2024 beat expectations with 205GWh installed globally, a staggering y-o-y increase of 53%. The grid market has once again been the driver of growth, with more than 160GWh deployed globally, of which 98% was lithium-ion.")
China’s Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-09/china-... | https://archive.today/DklaA - July 9, 2024
China Already Makes as Many Batteries as the Entire World Wants - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-... | https://archive.today/8Dy4D - April 12, 2024
Global BESS deployments to exceed 400GWh annually by 2030, says Rystad Energy - https://www.energy-storage.news/global-bess-deployments-to-e... - June 15, 2023
To put that number into perspective: That's about three days of Germany's electricity usage. And we can easily absorb 2-3 days in the electric grid alone.
Every 30 minutes, enough sunlight falls on Earth to power humanity for a year. It is simply a matter of scaling up fusion energy at a distance.
Oh please don't misunderstand me: We will end up using solar (or wind, which is really just solar with an extra detour), mostly because we have about 4 orders of magnitude more energy available there than we need. I just wanted to put the (admittedly impressive sounding) number of 3,100 GWh annual battery production capacity in perspective.
And to further qualify that: The capacity is increasing rapidly (but we will need it)
And to further qualify that: The capacity is increasing rapidly (but we will need it)
It is increasing. At the moment it is slowed because for the longest time we were fine with just hydro, pumped hydro, gas peaker plants and the natural inertia of the power plants' turbines and generators. Now demand is big enough that even lithium-ion is deployed for grid storage, despite lithium-ion being optimized for the opposite use case (light portable power storage). Lots of options that are more optimized for grid storage are in various stages of development, but it takes time for them to be brought to maturity and for operators to gain experience and confidence with them.
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It will. And define massively. People overestimate and under-specify these numbers. Mostly this is just economics. The cost of 1kwh of battery is trending towards 50$ for manufacturers and trending down over time. So, installing a few kwh/mwh/gwh of battery is not the end of the world depending on your needs.
> Storage capacity on the grid will need to massively increase as well for solar to go much further.
Probably not, if your definition of "much further" is an increase from 30% or something.
As a data point, one Australia State uses 70% renewables, average, over a year: https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/hydrogen-and-ren... It's a mixture of wind and solar. Unlike other places that have a high percentage of renewable generation they do not have hydro of any sort.
The renewables have replaced coal and gas generation. They are at 70% because renewables were cheaper than fossil 20 years ago, because they have no coal or gas - it's all imported. The transition was purely driven by cost. The costs were higher than any other state in Australia, so they started earlier.
The most costly part right now is the remaining 30%, which is supplied by gas peakers. You can guess what might happen in the future from this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/i-could-never-find-a-business-ca... Some quotes to save you reading that link:
- “The reality is that you can’t buy a gas turbine for the next four to five years,” David Scaysbrook, the founder and co-head of Quinbrook Infrastructure Investors, one of the world’s biggest energy investors ... “They’re all sold out,” he says. And the price has also soared. “They are nearly four times the cost of what it was two years ago.”
- the rising cost of gas – it is about three times higher than it was a decade ago – has made the business case even more complicated (FYI: Australia is the worlds largest gas exporter - the problem isn't availability).
Probably not, if your definition of "much further" is an increase from 30% or something.
As a data point, one Australia State uses 70% renewables, average, over a year: https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/hydrogen-and-ren... It's a mixture of wind and solar. Unlike other places that have a high percentage of renewable generation they do not have hydro of any sort.
The renewables have replaced coal and gas generation. They are at 70% because renewables were cheaper than fossil 20 years ago, because they have no coal or gas - it's all imported. The transition was purely driven by cost. The costs were higher than any other state in Australia, so they started earlier.
The most costly part right now is the remaining 30%, which is supplied by gas peakers. You can guess what might happen in the future from this: https://reneweconomy.com.au/i-could-never-find-a-business-ca... Some quotes to save you reading that link:
- “The reality is that you can’t buy a gas turbine for the next four to five years,” David Scaysbrook, the founder and co-head of Quinbrook Infrastructure Investors, one of the world’s biggest energy investors ... “They’re all sold out,” he says. And the price has also soared. “They are nearly four times the cost of what it was two years ago.”
- the rising cost of gas – it is about three times higher than it was a decade ago – has made the business case even more complicated (FYI: Australia is the worlds largest gas exporter - the problem isn't availability).
> It will take time to replace.
One way I've thought about, and some might hate me or this idea (or both) since I see a LOT of homes where I live in Florida going Solar, I keep wondering to myself, what happens if a law passes that makes it so new housing must contain solar as an option, and then over time, make it fully mandatory. Then you'd see a lot of newer homes with solar out of the box.
I wonder how the tariffs will play into this.
Exponential growth is unintuitive. More than a full percentage point was added last year and that will continue to accelerate.
Even the IAE is predicting 14% share by 2030 and they have underestimated solar for the last 10 years now
> They have underestimated solar for the last 10 years now
That is an incredibly large understatement. They have gotten it shamefully and fundamentally wrong year after year.
https://i.redd.it/zz9p8ekoss7d1.jpeg
That is an incredibly large understatement. They have gotten it shamefully and fundamentally wrong year after year.
https://i.redd.it/zz9p8ekoss7d1.jpeg
That graph looks like willful ignorance.
And feels like a spiritual relative to the Itanium sales forecast chart:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Itanium_Sales_Foreca...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Itanium_Sales_Foreca...
It looks like they may have some official methodology that may not be changed for political type reasons?
Not everything that grows quickly is exponential. What evidence specifically do you have that the growth is proportional to the already existing capacity? Or even that it will continue to accelerate?
A counterpoint: the recent quick growth has been fueled by panels getting cheaper. They used to be the majority of the cost. But that's not true anymore. The cost will soon be mainly installation (i.e. labor) and space. Neither are amenable to drastic further decreases.
Fortunately we've already reached the point where it's the cheapest option, so that it will continue to replace other power sources even if it does get much cheaper anymore.
A counterpoint: the recent quick growth has been fueled by panels getting cheaper. They used to be the majority of the cost. But that's not true anymore. The cost will soon be mainly installation (i.e. labor) and space. Neither are amenable to drastic further decreases.
Fortunately we've already reached the point where it's the cheapest option, so that it will continue to replace other power sources even if it does get much cheaper anymore.
some history
Kurzweil 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpoKYY1uy4
researchgate 2018 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Exponential-growth-in-so...
some 2024 data https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paulfbrowning_exponential-pv-...
and on it goes at about 25% per year. That would have it covering all our needs in about 15 years.
For comparison with Hinkley C the UKs new nuclear reactor the site was selected in 2010 and the latest is "£41.6–47.9 billion in 2024 prices, with Unit 1 planned to become operational in 2029 to 2031."
Kurzweil 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpoKYY1uy4
researchgate 2018 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Exponential-growth-in-so...
some 2024 data https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paulfbrowning_exponential-pv-...
and on it goes at about 25% per year. That would have it covering all our needs in about 15 years.
For comparison with Hinkley C the UKs new nuclear reactor the site was selected in 2010 and the latest is "£41.6–47.9 billion in 2024 prices, with Unit 1 planned to become operational in 2029 to 2031."
The question is when it starts looking more like an S-curve. That’s hard to predict because it depends on energy storage.
That's driven by a combination of cost/pricing and innovation. We're nowhere close to the limits of either battery or solar technology. We're looking at decades of further innovation, learning effects, etc. Assuming anything else would probably be a mistake. Many respectable reporting on energy falls into the trap of being too conservative. E.g. the IEA is a repeat offender on this. Many of their estimates for decades ahead get overtaken within years of being issued.
The real question is at what relative cost level it turns into an S-curve. Right now renewables are mostly cheaper than non renewables and transitioning to a lot cheaper. A lot might turn into one or more orders of magnitude. Where does it stop? Two? Three?
What's the ultimate cost of a mwh of power? It's probably a lot lower than what people currently pay. Renewables have a bit of upfront cost but the marginal cost of using the equipment is close to zero.
Lower cost of energy opens up new use cases and drives the market up. Basically it causes people to electrify more things. Even things that we currently think of as too costly. As those things get electrified, they get cheaper. And there are people that make the investment and benefit and people that don't and get pushed out of the market.
The real question is at what relative cost level it turns into an S-curve. Right now renewables are mostly cheaper than non renewables and transitioning to a lot cheaper. A lot might turn into one or more orders of magnitude. Where does it stop? Two? Three?
What's the ultimate cost of a mwh of power? It's probably a lot lower than what people currently pay. Renewables have a bit of upfront cost but the marginal cost of using the equipment is close to zero.
Lower cost of energy opens up new use cases and drives the market up. Basically it causes people to electrify more things. Even things that we currently think of as too costly. As those things get electrified, they get cheaper. And there are people that make the investment and benefit and people that don't and get pushed out of the market.
Since there will be so much solar installed it's quite inevitable that energy storage will be also growing on a lagging but similar exponential curve. Solar is becoming big, and if a major impediment is storage which is not a hard problem like fusion to solve, there will be tons done to bring it into reality.
Even if the current solutions are inadequate, the same was true for PV 20 years ago, it just needed investment in R&D. Investment in R&D of grid storage is at the highest in history, and growing.
Even if the current solutions are inadequate, the same was true for PV 20 years ago, it just needed investment in R&D. Investment in R&D of grid storage is at the highest in history, and growing.
the calculations i’ve seen around storage seemed to indicate that we were not going to be able to meet the demand with batteries anytime soon except with stuff like pumped storage
It's really hard to model unknown unknowns, most models for photovoltaic 20 years ago never predicted the current state but here we are.
Current grid storage technology is a few breakthroughs away, we just don't know when it will happen but given the amount poured into R&D for it, the willingness of governments, and technological hurdles that are orders of magnitude lower than fusion I don't see why we can't expect it to become reality in the next 10 years.
As I said, it's lagging the curve of solar adoption, China has invested a lot in solar for their own power needs as an oil-poor country, their options are renewables and uranium, with the EV industry booming in China, solar being widely adopted, I don't see why they couldn't be at the forefront of grid storage as well in a few years (5-10).
Current grid storage technology is a few breakthroughs away, we just don't know when it will happen but given the amount poured into R&D for it, the willingness of governments, and technological hurdles that are orders of magnitude lower than fusion I don't see why we can't expect it to become reality in the next 10 years.
As I said, it's lagging the curve of solar adoption, China has invested a lot in solar for their own power needs as an oil-poor country, their options are renewables and uranium, with the EV industry booming in China, solar being widely adopted, I don't see why they couldn't be at the forefront of grid storage as well in a few years (5-10).
Seems like we should be building fission now while waiting for those prospective battery breakthroughs - I think the gap between current storage/$ and where we need to be to build out renewable 100% is absolutely massive. We shouldn't be fully banking on it closing to achieve climate goals.
There are potential solutions without needing much cheaper batteries. If you over provide solar by 2x or 4x it may be good enough to cover much of the winter with batteries only needed for a short period overnight. Also the excess may get used for things like making hydrogen or aluminium.
My comment perceptually, exponential growth looks like bring hit by a wall. It's nothing at all until it is. It'll be 1%. And in a while it double. And double a again. And again. And each doubling is the same amount of time between them.
We're close to production of solar and wind exceeding recent growth in energy demand. When that happens it'll start cratering oil and gas demand.
We're close to production of solar and wind exceeding recent growth in energy demand. When that happens it'll start cratering oil and gas demand.
It's like I've always said about self driving cars. Self driving cars always seem around 5 years away, until suddenly they're 6 months away. There's no in between. We're seeing that with Waymo.
Visually it looks much more hopeful:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-solar?t...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-solar?t...
If it doubles every 3 years, it goes from 7% to 100% in 11.5 years (assuming total electricity use stays constant, which is wrong.)
All the gnashing about what this or that government policy change will do is just noise compared to this global trend.
All the gnashing about what this or that government policy change will do is just noise compared to this global trend.
And in 15 years it will be over 200%
200% of today's electricity consumption seems highly likely. Jevons paradox says that cheap electricity will increase consumption substantially.
All you need is the presumption that Jevon's Paradox applies, which makes this a circular argument.
[deleted]
See, it was around 7% five years ago in Germany, but has since doubled to 14%. There's no reason solar cannot grow equally exponentially in other countries, too.
And to think the sun doesnt even shine all the time.
Unstoppable force meets 104% tariff...
~50GW was imported with the expectation of tariffs [1]. That is a bit under 1 year of US deployment reserve.
Solar is about to get hit with tariffs, but stockpiles give buyers opportunities - https://electrek.co/2025/04/08/solar-hit-tariffs-but-stockpi... - April 8th, 2025
Domestic supply chain looks like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790553 (courtesy u/jax)
> According to [1], the USA in January 2025 has almost 50GW/yr module manufacturing capacity. But to make modules you need polysilicon (25GW/yr manufacturing capacity in the US), ingots (0GW/yr), wafers (0GW/yr), and cells (0GW/yr). Hence the USA is seemingly entirely dependent on imports, probably from China which has 95%+ of the global wafer manufacturing capacity.
> Even when accounting for announced capacity expansion, the USA is currently on target to remain a very small player in the global market with announced capacity of 33GW/yr polysilicon, 13GW/yr ingots, 24GW/yr wafers, 49GW/yr cells and 83GW/yr modules (13GW/yr sovereign supply chain limitation).
> In 2024, China completed sovereign manufacturing of ~540GW of modules[2] including all precursor polysilicon, ingots, wafers and cells. China also produced and exported polysilicon, ingots, wagers and cells that were surplus to domestic demand. Many factories in China's production chain are operating at half their maximum production capacity due to global demand being less than half of global manufacturing capacity.[3]
(citations in their comment)
Solar is about to get hit with tariffs, but stockpiles give buyers opportunities - https://electrek.co/2025/04/08/solar-hit-tariffs-but-stockpi... - April 8th, 2025
Domestic supply chain looks like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42790553 (courtesy u/jax)
> According to [1], the USA in January 2025 has almost 50GW/yr module manufacturing capacity. But to make modules you need polysilicon (25GW/yr manufacturing capacity in the US), ingots (0GW/yr), wafers (0GW/yr), and cells (0GW/yr). Hence the USA is seemingly entirely dependent on imports, probably from China which has 95%+ of the global wafer manufacturing capacity.
> Even when accounting for announced capacity expansion, the USA is currently on target to remain a very small player in the global market with announced capacity of 33GW/yr polysilicon, 13GW/yr ingots, 24GW/yr wafers, 49GW/yr cells and 83GW/yr modules (13GW/yr sovereign supply chain limitation).
> In 2024, China completed sovereign manufacturing of ~540GW of modules[2] including all precursor polysilicon, ingots, wafers and cells. China also produced and exported polysilicon, ingots, wagers and cells that were surplus to domestic demand. Many factories in China's production chain are operating at half their maximum production capacity due to global demand being less than half of global manufacturing capacity.[3]
(citations in their comment)
95% of the world doesn't live in America, all the more for the rest of us. America can enjoy its beautiful coal.
I just got a flashback to Trump enunciating “Clean coal, beautiful clean coal!”
Almost exactly as you were making this comment he signed a bunch of stuff to "Reinvigorates America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry":
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...
And then he’s going to extort trading partners like the EU by essentially forcing them to buy polluting coal from the US or face ongoing sanctions.
This is what he's talking about, but... it doesn't make any sense, at all. What would "forcing the EU to buy coal" entail? The EU isn't a command economy and has no potential use for coal _itself_. The EU contains companies which require coal (albeit demand has been dropping for some time) but they're just going to buy whatever's cheapest, and particularly given it's _coal_, and has a very low value per tonne, that's generally more or less going to mean whatever's closest. Unless American coal was _radically_ cheaper than any other coal, it would be hard to cover the extra transport cost.
Oh, wow. I assumed you were joking about the title, but... Is he having a toddler ghost-write these for him now?
First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Part of this extreme reckless tariff push is definitely protectionism for the fossil fuel industry.
Part of this extreme reckless tariff push is definitely protectionism for the fossil fuel industry.
> Part of this extreme reckless tariff push is definitely protectionism for the fossil fuel industry.
Indeed, it's becoming very obvious that the US is slowly turning into a resource curse nation. Sad.
Of course US tariffs are only going to make those Chinese panels cheaper for the EU and the rest of the world, which will then be less reliant on US-sourced fossil fuels. In the long run, putting up a wall in front of the your beachfront property is not going to protect your house when the tide comes in.
Indeed, it's becoming very obvious that the US is slowly turning into a resource curse nation. Sad.
Of course US tariffs are only going to make those Chinese panels cheaper for the EU and the rest of the world, which will then be less reliant on US-sourced fossil fuels. In the long run, putting up a wall in front of the your beachfront property is not going to protect your house when the tide comes in.
>Indeed, it's becoming very obvious that the US is slowly turning into a resource curse nation. Sad.
Not that, but a "first adopter curse" AKA path dependence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence
Not that, but a "first adopter curse" AKA path dependence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence
It's too stupidly done to be protectionism.
Yeah, there aren't enough bits of entropy in imports/(exports-imports) or whatever it was to encode fossil fuel protectionism.
I hope they are enjoying the drop in the oil price from $71 when trump did his Apr 2nd announcement to $57 now.
Do you think that was Biden's motivation when he put a 50% tariff on solar panels?
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ustr-biden-tariff-increase-...
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ustr-biden-tariff-increase-...
> The move builds on tariff hikes finalized by the Biden administration in September that target strategic product categories from China
You can argue about whether tariffs are good or bad, but in any case there's a vast difference between "target[ing] strategic product categories" and bluntly hitting entire ccTLDs.
You can argue about whether tariffs are good or bad, but in any case there's a vast difference between "target[ing] strategic product categories" and bluntly hitting entire ccTLDs.
The Biden tariffs were balanced by substantial incentives to build solar manufacturing capacity.
edit to respond to dead comment:
The Chinese wasted way more money on Solyndra's than the US did. Most of their solar power startups were failures too. Yet now they dominate because they subsidized more than one and didn't give up after one failed.
edit to respond to dead comment:
The Chinese wasted way more money on Solyndra's than the US did. Most of their solar power startups were failures too. Yet now they dominate because they subsidized more than one and didn't give up after one failed.
Targeted tariffs to protect or foster certain industries are acceptable. Blanket ones are not.
And they should be set just high enough that the industry remains competitive while not allowing for price gouging. We know companies will seek to maximize their prices. So if a foreign competitor is selling for 8% cheaper, then tariffs should be no more than 9%. We know from experience that manufactures will sell at the same price as foreign competition and will pocket the difference.
They should also be gradually reduced over time. The goal is to have domestic industries become globally competitive. And that necessarily means that companies need to strive to improve efficiency so they can match or beat the prices of global competitors. If that can't happen, then maybe those companies need to go away.
The reason tariffs are bad in the long term is A) it incentivize global competition to become even more efficient; B) it encourages domestic industries to be non-competitive. So the industry being favored by tariffs will never grow into a global power.
So tariffs on solar panels are fine, so long as they come with other incentives to spur domestic consumption (to drive efficiency gains) and a plan to lower those tariffs over time.
Blanket tariffs are pretty much never good, the only good reason to institute blanket tariffs on a country is as a prelude to direct conflict. As it will provide a market incentive for consumers to replace goods from that country with a more expensive alternative.
After all, a blanket tariff on all the goods coming from a country is a type of economic sanction. So a country who puts tariffs on the goods of every other country in the world is effectively feeling the impact of the first phase of conflict, when allies come together and enact trade barriers with a country. And why to countries band together to push economic sanctions on an adversary? To hurt their economy.
So TL;DR: Biden solar tariffs - well thought out and likely productive. Trump tariffs - pushing yourself in the face.
And they should be set just high enough that the industry remains competitive while not allowing for price gouging. We know companies will seek to maximize their prices. So if a foreign competitor is selling for 8% cheaper, then tariffs should be no more than 9%. We know from experience that manufactures will sell at the same price as foreign competition and will pocket the difference.
They should also be gradually reduced over time. The goal is to have domestic industries become globally competitive. And that necessarily means that companies need to strive to improve efficiency so they can match or beat the prices of global competitors. If that can't happen, then maybe those companies need to go away.
The reason tariffs are bad in the long term is A) it incentivize global competition to become even more efficient; B) it encourages domestic industries to be non-competitive. So the industry being favored by tariffs will never grow into a global power.
So tariffs on solar panels are fine, so long as they come with other incentives to spur domestic consumption (to drive efficiency gains) and a plan to lower those tariffs over time.
Blanket tariffs are pretty much never good, the only good reason to institute blanket tariffs on a country is as a prelude to direct conflict. As it will provide a market incentive for consumers to replace goods from that country with a more expensive alternative.
After all, a blanket tariff on all the goods coming from a country is a type of economic sanction. So a country who puts tariffs on the goods of every other country in the world is effectively feeling the impact of the first phase of conflict, when allies come together and enact trade barriers with a country. And why to countries band together to push economic sanctions on an adversary? To hurt their economy.
So TL;DR: Biden solar tariffs - well thought out and likely productive. Trump tariffs - pushing yourself in the face.
two more parts:
- a call to action
- dump and pump stock market scheme
how many HN users, say top 5000 commenters and people with craziest CVs and or income will profit of that? it would be stupid not to, right?
- a call to action
- dump and pump stock market scheme
how many HN users, say top 5000 commenters and people with craziest CVs and or income will profit of that? it would be stupid not to, right?
Solar panels are also produced in USA. The producers might increase their prices but so might oil/gas/other energy companies.
Last I looked 100% of the US manufacturers were assembling panels with silicon from China.
Maybe some domestic monocrystalline wafer production has come online recently? Curious if anyone has updated info.
Maybe some domestic monocrystalline wafer production has come online recently? Curious if anyone has updated info.
Must have been a long time since you looked then.
https://www.firstsolar.com/
https://www.firstsolar.com/
Poor wording on my part. I was only looking at residential panels, hence the note about Si wafers.
[deleted]
They’re simply not as good as the Chinese ones.
Is there a source for the claim that solar provides 7% of the world's power? I'm trying to track down the source of this figure. I see that the global "photovoltaic (PV) capacity" is at 6.6% (according to a trade organization that represents manufacturers of solar panels). I don't see a definition for "PV capacity", but I assume it means the total theoretical output of all installed solar panels, even if the output is much lower (due to panels being sub-optimally located, aligned, or having degraded over time).
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm just not buying the 7% figure as the evidence stands.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm just not buying the 7% figure as the evidence stands.
The news story is reporting on the new report from Ember think tank, which has interactive data charts on their site.
It shows solar PV as 6.91% of global electricity generation last year:
https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/
It shows solar PV as 6.91% of global electricity generation last year:
https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/
Moore's law for solar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law
I am excited to see the next 20 years :)
China keeps adding coal power plants like no other and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future
China’s Coal Generation Dropped 5% YOY In Q1 As Electricity Demand Increased - https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/20/chinas-coal-generation-... - April 20th, 2025
> will continue to do so for the foreseeable future
Not really, there is going to be about a 40-year trough in the Chinese economy due to demographics. At some point soon, manufacturing in China won't make sense anymore, (and world wide demand will also decrease due to demographics) so presumably China will be able to decommission a lot of their power generation instead of adding to it. Will they axe their coal? Time will tell, but adding capacity will end, and not too far in the future, either.
Not really, there is going to be about a 40-year trough in the Chinese economy due to demographics. At some point soon, manufacturing in China won't make sense anymore, (and world wide demand will also decrease due to demographics) so presumably China will be able to decommission a lot of their power generation instead of adding to it. Will they axe their coal? Time will tell, but adding capacity will end, and not too far in the future, either.
They are already ramping down new construction and they are starting to replace older (less efficient) plants. It's quite likely that one of these last 3 years will have been peak coal in China. The bad news is: That's a lot of coal that being burned. The good news is: They are less reliant on "recouping costs", which means _those_ plants will be shut down as soon as that's feasible
Also, they are steadily reducing the capacity factor of their coal plants. All of their recent coal plants are dispatchable plants, designed to run only when the sun isn't shining. So even though they are increasing capacity quickly, their actual usage of coal is relatively flat in comparison.
And they've started building massive battery storage plants, which will likely substantially replace their coal plants over the next decade.
And they've started building massive battery storage plants, which will likely substantially replace their coal plants over the next decade.
Funny to read these comments when China is easily dwarfing all other nations in solar capacity and technology. You can make these dismissive comments all you want, but China is going to be at the forefront of “green” energy production this century.
Sure, but there's something to be said for continuing to add non-green energy alongside it.
From an ecological perspective, it's like going on a diet and smoking an extra cigarette for every 100 calories you cut out.
From an ecological perspective, it's like going on a diet and smoking an extra cigarette for every 100 calories you cut out.
Running them less though:
>In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50% (https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants)
>In the first decade of the 2000s, plants were running around 70% of the time. They’re now running around 50% (https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants)
In 2024, the world added 553 GW of new solar capacity. China added 277.17 GW.
Sure but they're also absolutely plastering entire valleys in solar panels simultaneously.
On the other hand, the share of power produced by coal (and other fossil fuels) in China has been decreasing for over 10 years while the US has remained relatively stable. This tend will also continue for the foreseeable future.
They add coal as peaking power plants. They're not planning to run the grid on coal.
In context of climate change, absolute values of CO2 are still more relevant than proportion in generated energy.
Somewhat, but proportional/per-capita becomes more relevant when you allow for changing standards of living.
Put differently: Unless you have a plan to change the number of people on Earth (please don't) or the amount of power required per person (potentially viable), then proportional and absolute are essentially equivalent.
Put differently: Unless you have a plan to change the number of people on Earth (please don't) or the amount of power required per person (potentially viable), then proportional and absolute are essentially equivalent.
For more breathless headlines touting a green transition as emissions continue to mysteriously increase at a record pace?
It's not a mystery. The US and EU have year on year been decreasing emissions for fifteen ish years now (yes, including during trump I, even if you account for the COVID drop).
That's a cool story you can tell your kids before bed but the reality is that when you include imports the US/EU emissions are stagnating or going up. It's easy not to pollute when you import most of your things from abroad.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/imported-or-exported-co-e...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/imported-or-exported-co-e...
That graph measures whether they are importing or not.
So it's not the emissions that are stagnant, it's the per capita imports of emissions which are roughly flat.
They have a separate graph which reflects "consumption" based emissions:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
So it's not the emissions that are stagnant, it's the per capita imports of emissions which are roughly flat.
They have a separate graph which reflects "consumption" based emissions:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
By "imports of emissions" here, are we referring to the emissions involved in the creation of the imported goods? Or just what exactly?
It's an estimate, but AIUI yes.
Those data are moment in time. See one of the child posts for what you're talking about -- and in terms of trade corrected emissions the US and Europe turned the corner even earlier.
Exactly, this graph sums it up: https://climatanthropocene.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/co...
We talk more about it but in the facts nothing changes, if anything it's accelerating
We talk more about it but in the facts nothing changes, if anything it's accelerating
This graph might be more relevant: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...
The countries most talking about net-zero are indeed reducing their emissions. China is meanwhile trying to catch up to the standard of living of their Western counterparts, driving up emissions massively (while still having great per-capita values, there are just a lot of Chinese that previously lived on basically nothing)
The countries most talking about net-zero are indeed reducing their emissions. China is meanwhile trying to catch up to the standard of living of their Western counterparts, driving up emissions massively (while still having great per-capita values, there are just a lot of Chinese that previously lived on basically nothing)
[deleted]
Through incredible human ingenuity, we have convinced the two most abundant elements in the earth's crust to give us free energy. Once they are no longer effective, after several decades of service, we put them back in the earth where we got them.
Is this a problem worth solving?
Is it a problem worth giving any amount of thought to at all, when the alternative is killing people both directly through pollution and indirectly through climate change?
Is this a problem worth solving?
Is it a problem worth giving any amount of thought to at all, when the alternative is killing people both directly through pollution and indirectly through climate change?
[deleted]
Neat, solar power growing this fast is really good news!
Meanwhile in the USA the whitehouse just bailed out the coal industry.
Actually no, coal is still going to die in the US unless China sells us their coal for dirt cheap.
You get more watts per human labor hour with our abundant natural gas reserves. No matter how cheap you drive labor, it will still be more economical to use that labor to drill wells.
Coal was always dying, especially in the US, because of economic concerns. It's a stupid source of energy.
The fact that anyone in the US even thinks of coal is absurd. There are maybe 60k coal miners in the US. It hasn't mattered in decades.
You get more watts per human labor hour with our abundant natural gas reserves. No matter how cheap you drive labor, it will still be more economical to use that labor to drill wells.
Coal was always dying, especially in the US, because of economic concerns. It's a stupid source of energy.
The fact that anyone in the US even thinks of coal is absurd. There are maybe 60k coal miners in the US. It hasn't mattered in decades.
I, for one, welcome the solar age. Truly clean power that can be generated decentralised, on a regional, even local commune level.
It's wild how big companies, certain countries and billionaires are still holding on to nuclear fission (not fusion).
Nuclear reactors:
- take decades to build
- go massively over budget, at least 2x if not more [0]
- are inherently uneconomically: energy companies would never invest/build them on their own, only by lobbying governments for HUGE subsides (in various forms) do they get build
- inherently uninsurable: no private insurance company would insure a plant, again if private companies would need to build/run them on their own, every insurance company would deny them
- deconstructing them takes again billions and decades
- there's still no real-world solution (or even long-term secure storage) for nuclear waste in the world
---
Solar / Wind / Storage
Compare the 60 Billions for 1 single nuclear plant (UK) to what you would get from the same investment in solar (plus battery tech getting cheaper and better for storage). We are talking about differences in the magnitudes.
About the only value nuclear fission has is that's a central power source which gives the entities owning it huge power over the consumers.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/uk-nuclear-plant-hinkley-point-co...
It's wild how big companies, certain countries and billionaires are still holding on to nuclear fission (not fusion).
Nuclear reactors:
- take decades to build
- go massively over budget, at least 2x if not more [0]
- are inherently uneconomically: energy companies would never invest/build them on their own, only by lobbying governments for HUGE subsides (in various forms) do they get build
- inherently uninsurable: no private insurance company would insure a plant, again if private companies would need to build/run them on their own, every insurance company would deny them
- deconstructing them takes again billions and decades
- there's still no real-world solution (or even long-term secure storage) for nuclear waste in the world
---
Solar / Wind / Storage
Compare the 60 Billions for 1 single nuclear plant (UK) to what you would get from the same investment in solar (plus battery tech getting cheaper and better for storage). We are talking about differences in the magnitudes.
About the only value nuclear fission has is that's a central power source which gives the entities owning it huge power over the consumers.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/uk-nuclear-plant-hinkley-point-co...
This is not an adequate way to look at nuclear. If you check the stats of established constructions and not first of a kind prototypes (check Barakah instead Hinkley), the construction time is closer to 10 years, often less.
With transmutation and the option for recycling it altogether, waste is not an issue. Only the low fission parts of the spent fuel is low-grade active for longer than 1000 years, but this is such a low level of radiation, it is comparable to natural uranium formations and not an issue. The high radiation part of the fuel has lost the dangerous level of radiation in less than 1000 years and can be recycled before. The arenic compounds and other substances as byproduct of copper etc production for the mass of renewables have a much longer shelf life of toxitity. Also, you need more of them.
With transmutation and the option for recycling it altogether, waste is not an issue. Only the low fission parts of the spent fuel is low-grade active for longer than 1000 years, but this is such a low level of radiation, it is comparable to natural uranium formations and not an issue. The high radiation part of the fuel has lost the dangerous level of radiation in less than 1000 years and can be recycled before. The arenic compounds and other substances as byproduct of copper etc production for the mass of renewables have a much longer shelf life of toxitity. Also, you need more of them.
The average is probably between 10 and 20 years.
This is on top of an LCOE that is 5x that of solar or wind power and the need for catastrophe insurance to be provided essentially for free by the taxpayer on top of that.
(Fukushima cost about $1 trillion to clean up, the liability cap for US plants is about $250 million because otherwise private insurers who understand the risks better than you or I WILL NOT shoulder the liability)
The cost of nuclear can be dragged down by taking various risks that the people getting that sweet free catastrophe insurance would probably be happy with.
This is on top of an LCOE that is 5x that of solar or wind power and the need for catastrophe insurance to be provided essentially for free by the taxpayer on top of that.
(Fukushima cost about $1 trillion to clean up, the liability cap for US plants is about $250 million because otherwise private insurers who understand the risks better than you or I WILL NOT shoulder the liability)
The cost of nuclear can be dragged down by taking various risks that the people getting that sweet free catastrophe insurance would probably be happy with.
> With transmutation and the option for recycling it altogether, waste is not an issue
Yes, waste is an issue. We only recently got the first permanent storages and their viability is to be tested.
Dropping barrels in the ocean was just kind of recently disallowed. Nuclear waste processing still drops contaminated water into oceans and rivers.
Water is a brilliant radiation absorber. But you can be sure this radiation will at some point reach the food chain. These are insurmountable costs and other technologies don't have these problems, toxicity of materials is different from ratiation from decaying materials.
Perhaps there is a place for nuclear power, but its problems should not be ignored or downplayed as well as its costs.
Yes, waste is an issue. We only recently got the first permanent storages and their viability is to be tested.
Dropping barrels in the ocean was just kind of recently disallowed. Nuclear waste processing still drops contaminated water into oceans and rivers.
Water is a brilliant radiation absorber. But you can be sure this radiation will at some point reach the food chain. These are insurmountable costs and other technologies don't have these problems, toxicity of materials is different from ratiation from decaying materials.
Perhaps there is a place for nuclear power, but its problems should not be ignored or downplayed as well as its costs.
- Even if 'only' 10 years construction time: How much solar energy can be build in that time at a fraction of the cost?
- So we need to find secure expensive, leak-free storage only for 1000 years? Most countries cant even plan 5 years ahead.
- No words on generated Energy produced per Dollar.
Your rebuttal is not as significant as you might think.
- So we need to find secure expensive, leak-free storage only for 1000 years? Most countries cant even plan 5 years ahead.
- No words on generated Energy produced per Dollar.
Your rebuttal is not as significant as you might think.
The mention of nuclear in the article was weird:
> But [solar at 7%] remains eclipsed by wind, which grew to 8% last year, and nuclear to 9%.
Which is a bit mangled but seems to be suggesting nuclear grew to 9%.
Nuclear did grow slightly in absolute terms, but in percentage terms it hit a 45 year low as the total grew faster and so the share shrunk.
> But [solar at 7%] remains eclipsed by wind, which grew to 8% last year, and nuclear to 9%.
Which is a bit mangled but seems to be suggesting nuclear grew to 9%.
Nuclear did grow slightly in absolute terms, but in percentage terms it hit a 45 year low as the total grew faster and so the share shrunk.
And yet sometimes I wonder. In the Uk you need most of your energy in the cold dark winter. So if you require enough non solar renewables to get you through the winter with net zero and those renewables are still available in the summer time are large scale solar not a bit redundant? Sunnier countries that have high electricity demand for air conditioning during the sunny periods would seem to have a better match mind.
To be honest, peaker plants that sit offline for most of the year but can spin up in unfavorable conditions seems like an ideal application for fossil fuels. They're basically grid-scale emergency generators. Building an oversized battery farm that can store 3 weeks of energy and gets used once every other year probably won't make economic sense anytime soon.
The UK plans are mostly wind e.g. from the latest carbon budget:
> Low-carbon supply: by 2040, our Balanced Pathway sees offshore wind grow six-fold from 15 GW of capacity in 2023 to 88 GW by 2040. Onshore wind capacity doubles to 32 GW by 2040 and solar capacity increases to 82 GW
And once you multiply by capacity factor the solar and onshore wind are about equal so solar will be less than a third of modern renewables.
Plus UK wind peaks in the winter.
> Low-carbon supply: by 2040, our Balanced Pathway sees offshore wind grow six-fold from 15 GW of capacity in 2023 to 88 GW by 2040. Onshore wind capacity doubles to 32 GW by 2040 and solar capacity increases to 82 GW
And once you multiply by capacity factor the solar and onshore wind are about equal so solar will be less than a third of modern renewables.
Plus UK wind peaks in the winter.
I think Scotland is already a net exporter of electricity due to wind.
It's usually windy when it's dark and cold and vice versa.
You should be wondering about the combination of solar + wind energy + short term storage + long term storage.
You should be wondering about the combination of solar + wind energy + short term storage + long term storage.
> It's usually windy when it's dark and cold and vice versa.
Usually, but not always. You can have many days or weeks, e.g. in mid-winter of overcast weather and very little wind. This is a real problem for renewable energy sources, they're not comprehensively viable unless supplemented by alternatives like gas peakers or perhaps nuclear.
Usually, but not always. You can have many days or weeks, e.g. in mid-winter of overcast weather and very little wind. This is a real problem for renewable energy sources, they're not comprehensively viable unless supplemented by alternatives like gas peakers or perhaps nuclear.
Or geographic interconnection. There hasn't been an hour in the past 30 years where there was no wind or sun somewhere in Europe.
Winter nights are long and dark everywhere in Europe, wind speeds definitely correlate somewhat, and transmission losses exist. Unless you're planning to massively overbuild wind power, you do need alternative power sources capable of satisfying almost all your power demand for shorter periods.
The length of winter nights in Europe vary from 14.3[0] hours to 52 days[1].
Transmission losses are subject to engineering, and can be as low as you're willing to spend money to get them — as in, if the world all suddenly (magically and unrealistically) decided to be friends, you could put a girdle around the world with only 1 Ω resistance using existing manufacturing capacity[2].
[0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Tarifa+Spain+sunrise+21...
[1] https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2023/what-polar-night-exp...
[2] ~ 12 months global aluminium production, but you could do it
Transmission losses are subject to engineering, and can be as low as you're willing to spend money to get them — as in, if the world all suddenly (magically and unrealistically) decided to be friends, you could put a girdle around the world with only 1 Ω resistance using existing manufacturing capacity[2].
[0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Tarifa+Spain+sunrise+21...
[1] https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2023/what-polar-night-exp...
[2] ~ 12 months global aluminium production, but you could do it
Maybe look at some data before FUDding.
This model posits 97% carbon free generation in Australia with 5 hours of storage using actual real world weather data:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...
>You can have many days or weeks
Maybe cite actual data.
>alternatives like gas peakers or perhaps nuclear.
Nuclear isnt a peaker. Or rather, it can theoretically be used as a peaker but burning literal $100 notes may be more cost effective in the long run than using it as a peaker.
Batteries and pumped storage are cost effective peakers. I find it's better when modeling renewable energy generation scenarios to try not to pretend they dont exist.
This model posits 97% carbon free generation in Australia with 5 hours of storage using actual real world weather data:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...
>You can have many days or weeks
Maybe cite actual data.
>alternatives like gas peakers or perhaps nuclear.
Nuclear isnt a peaker. Or rather, it can theoretically be used as a peaker but burning literal $100 notes may be more cost effective in the long run than using it as a peaker.
Batteries and pumped storage are cost effective peakers. I find it's better when modeling renewable energy generation scenarios to try not to pretend they dont exist.
Pumped storage is cost effective but it's also built out, there's little if any scope for growth. Battery storage is entirely speculative so far. Whilst nuclear is a proven baseload source that can provide enough power for the most critical needs even when renewables aren't producing.
>Pumped storage is cost effective but it's also built out, there's little if any scope for growth
You're confusing pumped storage with river dams. The geography for pumped storage is abundant, river dams not so much.
>Battery storage is entirely speculative so far.
In 2012 maybe. These days grid level battery plants are deployed routinely.
>Whilst nuclear is a proven baseload source
At 5x the cost per kwh, according to lazard.
Baseload also means "requires peakers". That means gas or...batteries.
When french nuclear plants go down for maintenance the country chews through ungodly amounts of gas. Some of their plants have capacity factors of like ~80% - not much better than high performing wind farms.
You're confusing pumped storage with river dams. The geography for pumped storage is abundant, river dams not so much.
>Battery storage is entirely speculative so far.
In 2012 maybe. These days grid level battery plants are deployed routinely.
>Whilst nuclear is a proven baseload source
At 5x the cost per kwh, according to lazard.
Baseload also means "requires peakers". That means gas or...batteries.
When french nuclear plants go down for maintenance the country chews through ungodly amounts of gas. Some of their plants have capacity factors of like ~80% - not much better than high performing wind farms.
> Battery storage is entirely speculative so far.
Battery systems installed in the last 5 years in America are 15 times more powerful than all the fission reactors built in the same time. Meanwhile, US reactor capacity is now lower than it was in 1990. One of these power sources is "speculative" and the other is a rapidly-growing, practical and economical way to store and distribute energy.
Battery systems installed in the last 5 years in America are 15 times more powerful than all the fission reactors built in the same time. Meanwhile, US reactor capacity is now lower than it was in 1990. One of these power sources is "speculative" and the other is a rapidly-growing, practical and economical way to store and distribute energy.
[deleted]
That's a weak correlation at best. What about when it's still weather in winter? It's not unusual at all.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...
Thats the question this guy asked, using actual weather data to power his models instead of carbon industry fluff.
Unfortunately the instinctive skeptical reaction to this is not "here's an alternative model and alternative data" but "here's even more FUD".
Thats the question this guy asked, using actual weather data to power his models instead of carbon industry fluff.
Unfortunately the instinctive skeptical reaction to this is not "here's an alternative model and alternative data" but "here's even more FUD".
I appreciate the link, but Australia is an almost entirely tropical/subtropical country, with Sidney being as far from the equator as Northern Africa. I don't believe that analysis can tell you anything about Northern Europe.
This means that solar power output is much more seasonal, and most critically, power consumption in Northern Europe is highest during the winter months. I expect this is not the case for Australia.
This means that solar power output is much more seasonal, and most critically, power consumption in Northern Europe is highest during the winter months. I expect this is not the case for Australia.
America is so fucking backwards it makes me cry
botanical(3)
When do the fission cheerleaders capitulate?
The point of fission is that it still yields power even when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. The alternative is to run gas peaker plants, or even dirtier sources like coal. Storage is a non-starter, even the best form of energy storage (pumped hydro) cannot cope with a dip lasting more than a few days or weeks.
Gas peaker plants are not "the alternative" to nuclear power, they are exactly what nuclear power needs, too, because regulating nuclear plants down is not what you wanna do after investing billions into it-- you need those plants running on full tilt for like 90% of the time, and even then its gonna take decades to pay back the investment.
Meanwhile, 1kW of solar with 1kWh of storage can be had for $1k on Amazon, yields 1-2MWh per year and pays for itself within the decade, with costs still trending down. Yes, fully getting rid of fossil gas is an ongoing challenge, but a much easier one than ramping up nuclear reactor build rates by a factor of 1000 or so...
Meanwhile, 1kW of solar with 1kWh of storage can be had for $1k on Amazon, yields 1-2MWh per year and pays for itself within the decade, with costs still trending down. Yes, fully getting rid of fossil gas is an ongoing challenge, but a much easier one than ramping up nuclear reactor build rates by a factor of 1000 or so...
Fission plants are way too expensive to let idle. They make ideal baseload plants, but they suck as peaking plants.
So, never, for your part, is what you are saying? Have you updated this copypasta at any time over the last 15 years?
When volcanic eruptions are 100% predictable 3 years in advance.
I mean solar is basically worthless at any large scale if we get fission actually working. The fission dream will only die if we get to the point where solar/wind/etc and grid storage have gotten so cheap no one can make any money selling electricity.
Various parts of the energy sector (line maintenance in particular) seem to be hit pretty hard with cost disease & liabilities, plus there are often 2 or 3 companies, a market (being gamed), local authorities (that need a cut and have admin costs) and a regulatory structure between you and the power station.
I dunno how it will all play out but given how "overhead" costs keep rising it's possible that private solar & storage costs drop low enough that its cheaper than grid power in many places despite being much less efficient from first principles.
Physics vs beauracracy.
From my perspective, prices for full "off grid" setup dictate the maximum that utilities can charge, basically the main thing keeping them honest at this point. The other thing to price in would be the likelihood of new taxes / fees or bans on local generation if it looks like the grid will hit a death spiral.
I dunno how it will all play out but given how "overhead" costs keep rising it's possible that private solar & storage costs drop low enough that its cheaper than grid power in many places despite being much less efficient from first principles.
Physics vs beauracracy.
From my perspective, prices for full "off grid" setup dictate the maximum that utilities can charge, basically the main thing keeping them honest at this point. The other thing to price in would be the likelihood of new taxes / fees or bans on local generation if it looks like the grid will hit a death spiral.
Daily reminder that fossils aren't decreasing and renewables are just added on top.
The only recent time fossil decreased was during covid, and even then it barely was a dent. To meet our climate goals we'd need something in the same vein as covid... constantly
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
The only recent time fossil decreased was during covid, and even then it barely was a dent. To meet our climate goals we'd need something in the same vein as covid... constantly
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
Per capita fossil fuel consumption has been dropping for ~10 years. 2025 will be the year where total CO2 emissions drop and continue to drop. They were hoping that 2024 would be that year, but 2024 GDP growth was higher than expected. The 2025 trump-cession guarantees that CO2 emissions will drop in 2025.
https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...
https://climateanalytics.org/comment/will-2024-be-the-year-e...
>The world's population is projected to continue growing for the next 50 to 60 years
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population
https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population
Sure. But that population estimate is only something like 25% higher than today's population; the per capita decline with improvements in technology could be much more dramatic than that. Plus, the remaining increase in population is likely to be biased towards poorer parts of the world where per capita consumption is already lower. Parts of the world that haven't had a fossil-fueled industrial revolution by now shouldn't ever be expected to - they'll be able to leap-frog over those technologies.
> Per capita
I have another question then, does the planet care about "per capita" or about "total" emissions ?
Every few years they come up with the same fucking graph were the solid line goes straight up until "now" and the dotted line magically decreases in the close future and reach 0 in 50+ years, when none of us will be alive and accountable. meanwhile: https://climatanthropocene.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/co...
I have another question then, does the planet care about "per capita" or about "total" emissions ?
Every few years they come up with the same fucking graph were the solid line goes straight up until "now" and the dotted line magically decreases in the close future and reach 0 in 50+ years, when none of us will be alive and accountable. meanwhile: https://climatanthropocene.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/co...
> I have another question then, does the planet care about "per capita" or about "total" emissions ?
Assuming the number of humans don't drastically change from year to year, those are roughly proportional.
If per capita emissions drop by 2% and the population increases by 1%, it's still a win.
Assuming the number of humans don't drastically change from year to year, those are roughly proportional.
If per capita emissions drop by 2% and the population increases by 1%, it's still a win.
> The 2025 trump-cession guarantees that CO2 emissions will drop in 2025.
I do not want to start a whole political tirade so the following is meant more as humor:
Wouldn't that be ironic. Trump's actions help curb global climate change and bankrupts billionaires.
I do not want to start a whole political tirade so the following is meant more as humor:
Wouldn't that be ironic. Trump's actions help curb global climate change and bankrupts billionaires.
Article is limited on numbers perhaps but does state:
> Phil MacDonald, Ember's managing director, said: "Paired with battery storage, solar is set to be an unstoppable force.
"As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world's ever-increasing demand for electricity."
> Despite the rise in renewable power, electricity from more polluting fossil fuels crept up by 1.4% last year due to surging demand, meaning emissions from the sector rose too to an all-time high.
> Ember forecasts the growth in clean power will soon outpace the growth in demand, helping to displace fossil fuels from the system.
Is fossil fuel use growing at an increasing rate or decreasing rate? Is non-carbon emitting energy supplies growing at an increasing rate or decreasing?
> Phil MacDonald, Ember's managing director, said: "Paired with battery storage, solar is set to be an unstoppable force.
"As the fastest-growing and largest source of new electricity, it is critical in meeting the world's ever-increasing demand for electricity."
> Despite the rise in renewable power, electricity from more polluting fossil fuels crept up by 1.4% last year due to surging demand, meaning emissions from the sector rose too to an all-time high.
> Ember forecasts the growth in clean power will soon outpace the growth in demand, helping to displace fossil fuels from the system.
Is fossil fuel use growing at an increasing rate or decreasing rate? Is non-carbon emitting energy supplies growing at an increasing rate or decreasing?
None of them are decreasing globally, that's the point
If fossil fuels are growing at a decreasing rate that means that eventually they will stop growing. That's the point.
Does this look like it's coming to a plateau of even a slowdown to you ? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuel-consumption-b...
> To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C – as called for in the Paris Agreement – emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Even if we stopped right now we'd need to be back to ~2000 co2 emissions by 2030, that's in 5 years. Even if we had 5 years of covid with the same restrictions as we had in peak 2020 we wouldn't reach that point...
> To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C – as called for in the Paris Agreement – emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.
Even if we stopped right now we'd need to be back to ~2000 co2 emissions by 2030, that's in 5 years. Even if we had 5 years of covid with the same restrictions as we had in peak 2020 we wouldn't reach that point...
It seems very unlikely that we'll make it to a 1.5°C target - but it now seems likely that we can get much closer to that than we were fearing around the time of the Paris Agreement being drafted. The planet seems very much set to survive, and in the longer run (on the scale of centuries) we can enable temperatures to come back down again - if we keep caring, and if we find that it would be optimal. (There is tons of room to restore tree cover.)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio...
If you look at which is growing faster you see that renewables appear to be growing faster relative to fossil fuels.
If you look at which is growing faster you see that renewables appear to be growing faster relative to fossil fuels.
Thank you. At this point the renewable energy cheerleaders have resorted to greenwashing; we need voices of reason to hold us accountable.
The headline was clearly written to tell a story - that renewables are winning. According to what metric? If the goal is to reduce dependence of fossil-fueled carbon emissions (remember that pesky detail?) then renewables are evidently failing at their core objective. It's observable truth but a very uncomfortable one, as shown by the number of people downvoting - most would rather shift the goalpost than admit failure.
The headline was clearly written to tell a story - that renewables are winning. According to what metric? If the goal is to reduce dependence of fossil-fueled carbon emissions (remember that pesky detail?) then renewables are evidently failing at their core objective. It's observable truth but a very uncomfortable one, as shown by the number of people downvoting - most would rather shift the goalpost than admit failure.
The subheadline:
> Solar power has doubled in just three years, according to thinktank Ember, but rising electricity demand from air conditioning, AI and electric vehicles means electricity from fossil fuel sources still grew.
> Solar power has doubled in just three years, according to thinktank Ember, but rising electricity demand from air conditioning, AI and electric vehicles means electricity from fossil fuel sources still grew.
Which is objectively a different statement than the headline - it heavily caveats the narrative stated in the headline yet still doesn't backpedal fast enough. It completely ignores the fact that electricity is only 20% of carbon emissions. We need massive amounts of energy for industrial processes that are nowhere near being electrified, even in concept let alone in practice at scale. It's looks distinctly like the data was cherry-picked and manipulated to highlight the easy wins we've accomplished already and to serve the "renewables are winning" narrative.
This is beyond burying the lede. This is an intentionally misleading headline. Holding ourselves accountable to the real goal (reducing CO2) is the only way to succeed - as soon as we start fudging the goalpost and claiming victory, we're no longer doing credible science communication.
This is beyond burying the lede. This is an intentionally misleading headline. Holding ourselves accountable to the real goal (reducing CO2) is the only way to succeed - as soon as we start fudging the goalpost and claiming victory, we're no longer doing credible science communication.
Yeah, no. That picture is disgusting.
Look at all of that natural habitat plowed through will diesel bulldozers, hauled off with giant diesel trucks, displacing animals and plants and insects. The habitat is permanently ruined.
This is dumb and shouldn't be celebrated.
Solar is fine in already disturbed areas. Stop clearing more land for "green" projects.
Look at all of that natural habitat plowed through will diesel bulldozers, hauled off with giant diesel trucks, displacing animals and plants and insects. The habitat is permanently ruined.
This is dumb and shouldn't be celebrated.
Solar is fine in already disturbed areas. Stop clearing more land for "green" projects.
I believe that the installation in that picture and a number of other installations in the Taizhou region are built over a river system or some kind of tidal water reservoir I was unable to find the exact area but [1] is a nearby installation.
Land use is a large contributing factor to climate change but this particular image seems to be the best case scenario for large solar installation the ecosystem (marshland?) appears to be relatively undisturbed (also considering it is centrally located in a city of 4 million people solar panels or not it seems pretty lush). And I'll parrot an often cited statistic: "the entire U.S. could be powered by utility-scale solar occupying just 0.6% of the nation’s land mass" this (imo) makes a good case for solar PV as a relatively large chunk of installed grid capacity it just seems like a better compromise than the alternatives.
If utility scale battery storage ever pans out (that or UHV transmission or both) then we could see renewable sources like solar+wind actually work as base-load capacity.
Others also comment on this thread that converted agricultural land (i.e. field to pasture) meshes well with solar PV installation the plants typically do not need full sun. I would guess that a small percentage of installed solar required any kind of land shaping or clearing although it does happen [2].
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-invests-546...
[2] https://www.cmigroupinc.ca/solar-farm-environmental-impact-b...
Land use is a large contributing factor to climate change but this particular image seems to be the best case scenario for large solar installation the ecosystem (marshland?) appears to be relatively undisturbed (also considering it is centrally located in a city of 4 million people solar panels or not it seems pretty lush). And I'll parrot an often cited statistic: "the entire U.S. could be powered by utility-scale solar occupying just 0.6% of the nation’s land mass" this (imo) makes a good case for solar PV as a relatively large chunk of installed grid capacity it just seems like a better compromise than the alternatives.
If utility scale battery storage ever pans out (that or UHV transmission or both) then we could see renewable sources like solar+wind actually work as base-load capacity.
Others also comment on this thread that converted agricultural land (i.e. field to pasture) meshes well with solar PV installation the plants typically do not need full sun. I would guess that a small percentage of installed solar required any kind of land shaping or clearing although it does happen [2].
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-invests-546...
[2] https://www.cmigroupinc.ca/solar-farm-environmental-impact-b...
Okay, but put the panels on rooftops, not over that nice greenery.
Putting solar panels over a grassland is a lot better for the environment than using the same area for agriculture. It's not like we have a lot of meadows just lying around unused that are used for solar projects. It's also a lot cheaper than installing panels on roofs.
However we should normalize panels over parking lots. Parking lots are just concrete wastelands, and while lifting the panels up over the cars requires a bit more material it is otherwise basically free real estate in areas with high electricity use (great to minimize grid losses)
However we should normalize panels over parking lots. Parking lots are just concrete wastelands, and while lifting the panels up over the cars requires a bit more material it is otherwise basically free real estate in areas with high electricity use (great to minimize grid losses)
The greenery may be perfectly fine with it. A lot of plants prefer shade, though of course that’s so they can still grow while shaded by trees.
You might say “put in a forest”, and I’d agree, but if that’s not going to happen then we might as well have the solar panels.
You might say “put in a forest”, and I’d agree, but if that’s not going to happen then we might as well have the solar panels.
The greenery in question appears to be a tidal estuary (but I'm not 100% sure) and it also appears to be close to the downtown center of a city of 4 million people who all need some amount of electricity to live their daily lives. The ecosystem of the body of water on which these panels are installed is I would imagine relatively undisturbed by the solar PV - it's a question of aesthetics whether or not this habitat has been degraded.
My feeling is that these over-water panels generating a not-insignificant amount of power are an ideal compromise between the sprawl of the built environment of (Taizhou, China) and the natural ecosystem.
My feeling is that these over-water panels generating a not-insignificant amount of power are an ideal compromise between the sprawl of the built environment of (Taizhou, China) and the natural ecosystem.
Putting solar on rooftops has at least one really unfortunate drawback, at least in Anglosphere nations with the fucked up common law system. Rooftop solar vests the owner with a claim to a right to the sun, and a way to stop people from building anything next to their house.
It's not "over" greenery. Land is entirely cleared of vegetation before panels are installed, including the occasional forest. Thousands of larger birds are killed by wind farms. Offshore wind farms are creating deserts for fish. Understandably, many prefer the good old days before the planet was being saved.
Why would they prefer the older methods that do more land damage and kill even more animals?
DWs recent doc showed fish thriving around offshore farms and high success rates of preventing bird strikes by painting the blades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3395_T1N-fo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3395_T1N-fo
Have you seen what just mining coal does too a landscape? I don't think so.
The only reason for that is that coal isn't new and thus not reported on in the news.
The only reason for that is that coal isn't new and thus not reported on in the news.
Can you cite the offshore wind farm induced fish desert? I’d be interested to understand the dynamics.
Wait until you find out what fracking and oil drilling do.
It now provides 7% of the world's electricity”