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That's big, but so is the western hemisphere. 58 trillion USD to power the entire western hemisphere seems... Pretty reasonable? Assuming it depreciates over 30

by WJW 6y ago

That's big, but so is the western hemisphere. 58 trillion USD to power the entire western hemisphere seems... Pretty reasonable? Assuming it depreciates over 30 years that's about 2 trillion per year, or "only" about double what the USA spends yearly on its military.

sbierwagen 6y ago
Spending 58 trillion on solar panels would probably induce some pretty good economies of scale, too. What kind of volume discounts do you get on a 15 digit purchase order?
- mywittyname 6y ago
  I assume at that point you just buy the factories.
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    At that scale you have to buy the factories that make the factories.
- dumbfounder 6y ago
  @mywittyname Nay, you MAKE the factories.
- wolco5 6y ago
  And increase the base price of materials to outset gains but hopefully create a scale for materials that reduces price over time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
pedro_hab 6y ago
In 2010, expenditures on energy totaled over US$6 trillion, or about 10% of the world gross domestic product (GDP). 58T is the opposite of pretty reasonable. Even if you could assume it wouldn't need any maintenance, which you can't, it's too much money for anything.
- fastball 6y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted, you are exactly correct. 60T is 10x more than global energy expenditure in 2010, and that's just for the Western Hemisphere, which I'm fairly certain expends significantly less energy then the Eastern. Edit: just checked, and I was correct. In 2010, Western Hemi energy demand was ~130 PBtu, while Easter Hemi demand was ~330 PBtu[1], or 2.5x more. So at this same price point, it would be 210T to power the whole world with solar, or 50% more than global GDP in 2019 (but only using 2010 energy consumption numbers, so it's actually much more). And of course you'd need to keep adding more solar as demand went up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/media/File:World_primary_energy_consumption_in_quadrillion_Btu_by_region.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...
  - WJW 6y ago
    You wouldn't have to keep spending that amount every year though. A solar panel lasts for several decades and maintenance (especially at scale) is way less than a percent per year. I included 30 year depreciation in my calculations for a reason.
    - fastball 6y ago
      But is that maintenance lower than the existing maintenance burden? Even then, this is still a wildly conservative estimate in terms of price. For example, you're also not taking into account any of the things that can't currently be easily electrified, such as passenger jets.
      - WJW 6y ago
        It'd need to be lower than the existing maintenance plus fuel burden of course, since sunshine is free but oil and coal are not. In any case, if you can't change the power source (as you say, passengers jets are pretty tricky to electrify) then you don't have to build solar panels for those so the upfront cost would go down. Thinking about it more it would seem likely that as overall oil consumption falls, the relative cost of oil derivatives like jet fuel would go up because the advantages of scale decrease from what they are now. It's a pretty fascinating subject since solar prices seem to follow a Moore's law type price evolution at the moment while oil will get cheaper as well while demand decreases. Presumably there is a balance point somewhere?

by WJW 6y ago

sbierwagen 6y ago

Spending 58 trillion on solar panels would probably induce some pretty good economies of scale, too. What kind of volume discounts do you get on a 15 digit purchase order?

mywittyname 6y ago
I assume at that point you just buy the factories.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  At that scale you have to buy the factories that make the factories.
dumbfounder 6y ago
@mywittyname Nay, you MAKE the factories.
wolco5 6y ago
And increase the base price of materials to outset gains but hopefully create a scale for materials that reduces price over time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

pedro_hab 6y ago

In 2010, expenditures on energy totaled over US$6 trillion, or about 10% of the world gross domestic product (GDP). 58T is the opposite of pretty reasonable. Even if you could assume it wouldn't need any maintenance, which you can't, it's too much money for anything.

fastball 6y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted, you are exactly correct. 60T is 10x more than global energy expenditure in 2010, and that's just for the Western Hemisphere, which I'm fairly certain expends significantly less energy then the Eastern. Edit: just checked, and I was correct. In 2010, Western Hemi energy demand was ~130 PBtu, while Easter Hemi demand was ~330 PBtu[1], or 2.5x more. So at this same price point, it would be 210T to power the whole world with solar, or 50% more than global GDP in 2019 (but only using 2010 energy consumption numbers, so it's actually much more). And of course you'd need to keep adding more solar as demand went up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/media/File:World_primary_energy_consumption_in_quadrillion_Btu_by_region.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...
- WJW 6y ago
  You wouldn't have to keep spending that amount every year though. A solar panel lasts for several decades and maintenance (especially at scale) is way less than a percent per year. I included 30 year depreciation in my calculations for a reason.
  - fastball 6y ago
    But is that maintenance lower than the existing maintenance burden? Even then, this is still a wildly conservative estimate in terms of price. For example, you're also not taking into account any of the things that can't currently be easily electrified, such as passenger jets.
    - WJW 6y ago
      It'd need to be lower than the existing maintenance plus fuel burden of course, since sunshine is free but oil and coal are not. In any case, if you can't change the power source (as you say, passengers jets are pretty tricky to electrify) then you don't have to build solar panels for those so the upfront cost would go down. Thinking about it more it would seem likely that as overall oil consumption falls, the relative cost of oil derivatives like jet fuel would go up because the advantages of scale decrease from what they are now. It's a pretty fascinating subject since solar prices seem to follow a Moore's law type price evolution at the moment while oil will get cheaper as well while demand decreases. Presumably there is a balance point somewhere?