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I'm clear on all that. My point was simply this: PV is not efficient/cheap-enough to catch on in the developing world, yet. As the developing world cannot sub

by roc 15y ago

I'm clear on all that. My point was simply this: PV is not efficient/cheap-enough to catch on in the developing world, yet. As the developing world cannot subsidize/commodify something it cannot afford, by definition, the only way PV becomes more efficient and more inexpensive, is by chasing western demand/subsidies. Which then means that for PV to ever be big in the developing world, there is a precondition of substantial generating and production capacity for PV in the developed world. Given that such installations must exist for PV to even make progress toward the developing-world-changing tipping-point, it seemed strange to me to say that Solar will never be "a big deal" in the developed world. One could likely do the math and determine approximately how much installed generating capacity and how much production capacity the industry would need to have created, to drive price-per-watt down to rates that are attractive to the developing world. And I'm thinking the numbers you'd come up with amount to "a big deal" by any reasonable objective measure. (Though I do concede that such a substantial number may still pale in comparison to fossil fuel usage in the developed world.)

tptacek 15y ago
I'm not sure you're seeing the core point here. The newcomer technology displaces the incumbent by making a concession the incumbent can't make. Here, solar can, in the developing world, make the concession of providing less power, less reliably. Since the developing world often lacks any power, bringing reliable high-output power to a region is likely to be more expensive than bringing in low-output, low-reliability solar. Maybe you already get that, too, but I don't see you addressing the point in your comment.
- roc 15y ago
  I'm not addressing it because I don't have any objections to it. I understand and concede that PV can/will become attractive in the developing world long before it becomes (if it ever does) attractive in the developed world. My objection is to the casual dismissal of the quantity of PV build-out in the developed world that's implicit in PV reaching the cost/efficiency tipping point for the developing world. e.g. It takes an awful lot of people buying panels at $2/watt for them to ever hit $1/watt. And though, say, Africa may go on to generate a much larger percentage of their power from $1/watt panels than the US ever will, I don't think it's fair to say the big pile of $2/watt panels is "not a big deal" in the US.

by roc 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago

I'm not sure you're seeing the core point here. The newcomer technology displaces the incumbent by making a concession the incumbent can't make. Here, solar can, in the developing world, make the concession of providing less power, less reliably. Since the developing world often lacks any power, bringing reliable high-output power to a region is likely to be more expensive than bringing in low-output, low-reliability solar. Maybe you already get that, too, but I don't see you addressing the point in your comment.

roc 15y ago
I'm not addressing it because I don't have any objections to it. I understand and concede that PV can/will become attractive in the developing world long before it becomes (if it ever does) attractive in the developed world. My objection is to the casual dismissal of the quantity of PV build-out in the developed world that's implicit in PV reaching the cost/efficiency tipping point for the developing world. e.g. It takes an awful lot of people buying panels at $2/watt for them to ever hit $1/watt. And though, say, Africa may go on to generate a much larger percentage of their power from $1/watt panels than the US ever will, I don't think it's fair to say the big pile of $2/watt panels is "not a big deal" in the US.