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A lot of this is vagueness and hand-waving, with few specific numbers. Solar technology, for example, has so consistently outpaced forecasts that it's almost a

A lot of this is vagueness and hand-waving, with few specific numbers. Solar technology, for example, has so consistently outpaced forecasts that it's almost a joke: https://16iwyl195vvfgoqu3136p2ly-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/iea-prediction-2017-update4.png https://16iwyl195vvfgoqu3136p2ly-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... and costs continue to fall steadily: https://www.thesolarnerd.com/blog/solar-pricing-2019/images/price-of-solar.png https://www.thesolarnerd.com/blog/solar-pricing-2019/images/... but this is handwaved away as "ignorant of underlying economics", even though the economics themselves have changed massively and continue to do so. (Anyone even vaguely familiar with the industry knows about the difference between baseload and peak power; a local newspaper might mess this up in their solar story, but it's hard to believe that any serious analyst would.)

Barrin92 6y ago
The world's fossil fuel dependency is actually up from the early 2000s, and about 3% lower than in the 90s. (from roughly 91% to 88%). So even though Solarpower is growing relatively fast, it's not having a big impact on the structure of the energy sector. If you want more hard data you should actually pick up the book mentioned in the article, Gordon's excellent The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Otherwise, anemic economic growth around the world and diminishing returns on science actually very intuitively show that the author is right. Total factor productivity in the UK for example has not gone up at all in over 10 years.
- kiliantics 6y ago
  Yes, it's like rating a hedge fund's performance -- doesn't matter how much its portfolio grew by but how much MORE it grew relative to the growth rate of the market. If solar is not outpacing the growth of coal, oil, and gas, then it's not helping.
  - jacobr1 6y ago
    True for the timeframe under-analysis, but not necessarily for long-term trends if there are changing fundamentals. One of the interesting things that has happened with solar is that subsidy has decreased. So even if the composition is remaining static for new development, if we now have sustainable solar compared the the historically (economically) unsustainable version that required government intervention, that was an accomplishment. The counterfactual is not stable composition of generative sources but one with renewables decreasing because the political will waned to continue subsidy.
    - kiliantics 6y ago
      I suppose the glass is not completely half empty. It would be great if subsidies for fossil fuels were also decreased.
- petra 6y ago
  In 2019, "The utility-scale capacity additions consist primarily of wind (46%), natural gas (34%), and solar photovoltaics (18%), ". Seems like renewable are having a big impact. From: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37952 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37952

Barrin92 6y ago

The world's fossil fuel dependency is actually up from the early 2000s, and about 3% lower than in the 90s. (from roughly 91% to 88%). So even though Solarpower is growing relatively fast, it's not having a big impact on the structure of the energy sector. If you want more hard data you should actually pick up the book mentioned in the article, Gordon's excellent The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Otherwise, anemic economic growth around the world and diminishing returns on science actually very intuitively show that the author is right. Total factor productivity in the UK for example has not gone up at all in over 10 years.

kiliantics 6y ago
Yes, it's like rating a hedge fund's performance -- doesn't matter how much its portfolio grew by but how much MORE it grew relative to the growth rate of the market. If solar is not outpacing the growth of coal, oil, and gas, then it's not helping.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  True for the timeframe under-analysis, but not necessarily for long-term trends if there are changing fundamentals. One of the interesting things that has happened with solar is that subsidy has decreased. So even if the composition is remaining static for new development, if we now have sustainable solar compared the the historically (economically) unsustainable version that required government intervention, that was an accomplishment. The counterfactual is not stable composition of generative sources but one with renewables decreasing because the political will waned to continue subsidy.
  - kiliantics 6y ago
    I suppose the glass is not completely half empty. It would be great if subsidies for fossil fuels were also decreased.
petra 6y ago
In 2019, "The utility-scale capacity additions consist primarily of wind (46%), natural gas (34%), and solar photovoltaics (18%), ". Seems like renewable are having a big impact. From: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37952 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37952