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> We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful. You're confusing an s-curve with a hockey stick curve here. It's und
by pyrale 3y ago
> We're heading for a future where energy is going to be dirt cheap, clean, and plentiful.
You're confusing an s-curve with a hockey stick curve here. It's understandable as long as you're in the first half of the curve, but there is always an inflection at some point.
- Gwypaas 3y agoNew built renewables cost the same as the operations and maintenance of existing fossil and nuclear power generation. The world will become an interesting place when renewables start being paid off since their marginal cost is pretty much zero.
- jillesvangurp 3y agoI don't think I'm confused. I'm merely extrapolating current trends. Are you hoping it's an s-curve or asserting it is?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoIt's always an s-curve eventually. The question is, how far off is the point where it quits being exponential? If it's far enough off, "it's an s-curve eventually" doesn't matter - or at least doesn't matter now.
- pyrale 3y agoIt's an assertion. With power becoming cheaper and cheaper, incentive to invest in innovation gradually tapers off, and a technology becomes stable and mature. Another aspect within the power industry, as renewable production becomes less and less of a bottleneck and other problems such as grid management and storage become the key challenge to being able to enjoy stable power, investment will be redirected to these aspects of providing electricity. In Europe, we see countries reaching half their production in renewables, and already this creates challenges on the current electricity market structure. 10 years from now, at the current pace, pioneering countries will be past the point where production is the problem they need to solve. Countries coming after them will still drive some innovation, sure. We may also see faster-than-expected electrification. So in this horizon, hockeystick predictions might still hold. But the combination of these mechanism basically defeats the prospect of power becoming "too cheap to meter", or dirt-cheap.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoThere is always an inflection, and that inflection is almost always further in the future than most predict. In this case we're fairly confident that the inflection is at least a decade away given the innovations currently in labs.