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> You also mention the time spent waiting for nuclear to come online but fail to consider that PV has consistently failed to reduce fossil fuel usage (in absolu

> You also mention the time spent waiting for nuclear to come online but fail to consider that PV has consistently failed to reduce fossil fuel usage (in absolute or percentage numbers) even as the market share of it has skyrocketed. You should look at flows rather than stocks. > However, stocks are a lagging indicator. Stocks follow flows; the car fleet follows car sales. Flows are the leading indicator. In the early stages of a transition, flows present a very different story to stocks. For instance, it is frequently noted that fossil fuels account for over 80 percent of global primary energy and this number hasn’t budged meaningfully for decades. > Rarely mentioned is the fact that renewables have been taking an increasing share of the growth in energy supply, and all of the growth in 2019-21. Moving the focus from stocks to flows moves the conclusion from no change to radical change. Concentrating on the size of the fossil fuel system today is like focusing on the large number of horses in 1900 — it was as good a guide then as it is now. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/cp/138702709 https://www.theclimatebrink.com/cp/138702709 For example, China's fossil use is set for structural decline since renewables more than make up the required grid expansions. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carbon-emissions-set-for-structural-decline-from-next-year https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/13/chinas-carb...

vlovich123 3y ago
No I’m looking at flows. Look at the change in % of fossil fuels to other energy sources over time. When Nuclear goes up, fossil fuels goes down, when it goes down fossil fuels go up. When solar/wind go up, fossil fuels are untouched. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix Also, again - PVs can only replace grid energy (well not even then because we don’t have an answer for storage & there’s nothing being built anytime soon & we don’t really have anything realistic in the R&D pipeline). Plenty of energy use in the production of PVs is off-grid and we’re doing terribly on replacing that. PVs manufacturing isn’t going to be net-0 for a very very very long time.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > PVs can only replace grid energy PV can replace anything. The question is cost. At historical experience rates, PV energy will be under $0.01/kWh by the time the world is solar powered. Resistive heat using this would be comparable in cost to combustion of currently cheap US natural gas, perhaps even cheaper. It would literally be cheaper to use that to heat up a large mass of rock and use that to make steam to make power, than it would be to make that steam (and then generate power) with a nuclear reactor instead.

vlovich123 3y ago

No I’m looking at flows. Look at the change in % of fossil fuels to other energy sources over time. When Nuclear goes up, fossil fuels goes down, when it goes down fossil fuels go up. When solar/wind go up, fossil fuels are untouched. https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix Also, again - PVs can only replace grid energy (well not even then because we don’t have an answer for storage & there’s nothing being built anytime soon & we don’t really have anything realistic in the R&D pipeline). Plenty of energy use in the production of PVs is off-grid and we’re doing terribly on replacing that. PVs manufacturing isn’t going to be net-0 for a very very very long time.

pfdietz 3y ago
> PVs can only replace grid energy PV can replace anything. The question is cost. At historical experience rates, PV energy will be under $0.01/kWh by the time the world is solar powered. Resistive heat using this would be comparable in cost to combustion of currently cheap US natural gas, perhaps even cheaper. It would literally be cheaper to use that to heat up a large mass of rock and use that to make steam to make power, than it would be to make that steam (and then generate power) with a nuclear reactor instead.