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The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history
- vasco 2y agoA single breakthrough in fusion invalidates the title.
- xracy 2y agoI mean, fusion energy is still 10 years out. Just like it was a decade ago.
- ggm 2y ago20.
- sdenton4 2y agoFusion is only eight minutes out, and always has been...
- gravescale 2y agoThere's a graph somewhere (edit: here¹) which indicates that fusion within X years has been estimated to be roughly a fixed number of billion dollars (kilos of gold, whatever, insert unit of monetary value) away since forever, and it's not that it's getting endlessly futher away as time passes, it's just that functionally zero money has been spent on it, so it's just not getting any closer. In fact, that any progress has been made at all is testament to the tenacity of researchers who are operating on a fraction of the budget described as "fusion never". ¹: http://imgur.com/sjH5r http://imgur.com/sjH5r
- xracy 2y agoI mean, I guess that's a possibility, but it's also impossible to prove, and the graphs of "what might've been" are probably more likely to be incorrect than correct.
- tuatoru 2y agoNo, we need ~100 breakthroughs in science and a similar number in engineering for fusion to compete with solar which is headed for under $1 per MWh capital cost.
- 7thpower 2y agoThey are powered by fusion, in a sense.
- psychoslave 2y agoThat's a very valid point here. The general discourse is blured with the misguiding with terms such a "producing energy", when physics clearly show great results with the assumption that there is only energy transfer and never any production. At best we can produce a way to capture existing energy and route it where we feel useful.
- moooo99 2y agoSo a breakthrough like the one people are saying is just around the corner for 40 years now?
- pfdietz 2y agoSo, you think fusion is a "single breakthrough" from practicality? You clearly don't understand the issues facing fusion.
- staunton 2y agoEven if/when we manage to build working fusion power plants, those will be big and quite expensive...
- gravescale 2y agoYes, and my grandmother sprouting wheels would also invalidate the title of my blog post about needing to buy a bicycle.
- locallost 2y agoAmory Lovins made this case in Reinventing Fire a long time ago. I think people fail to see what is right there in front of them because: 1) they are stuck in old models of what is needed, baseload etc. 2) the energy sector is a trillion dollar business giving incumbents trillions of reasons to muddy the waters with made up issues (panels need to be replaced after 20 years etc) But I think the revolution or evolution can't be stopped. Texas of all places is blowing up in solar installations. Money talks louder than ideology or opinions.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoI think you are on to something here. People have a hard time internalizing intuitions about exponentially evolving situations. If you look at renewables, it went from a cool idea to essentially becoming the fastest growing and soon largest form of energy generation in my life time (nearly 50 years). Solar, has dethroned fossil fuels as the cheapest and most convenient form of energy. It's already cheaper than anything else and getting even more cheaper. So, the chaotic period we are going through now has a lot of people in denial about this, ignoring the facts around them, and generally unaware about the wave of renewable technology that is heading their way. This stuff went from "oh it's only a fraction of a percent" to "oops, that's actually most of the market" since the start of this century. Historically, every big improvement in cost and availability of energy has caused a step change in economic growth. And for the last few hundred years, those step changes have been occurring closer and closer together. The article is a bit over the top but the premise that solar energy represents such a step change is spot on. Orders of magnitude cost reductions are very meaningful and we're seeing those happening. And this is not over yet. The article does a pretty good job of outlining how clean energy can displace fossil energy across every economical sector that matters. And not all of it is science fiction. Mostly, this will be driven by raw economics. As energy becomes cheaper, it unlocks larger parts of our economy to be cleaned up. People will do it because it's cheaper and those that don't adapt are going to be wiped out by their more efficient competitors. The interesting thing is that because of the exponentials, a lot of this is happening way sooner than some people seem to expect. And before somebody gets pedantic, I'm well aware that they are technically s-curves and that there's an eventual flattening of the curves. But we're quite far away from that and until then it looks and feels exactly like an exponential. Especially when we are still at or before the bit of the curve where it trends sharply upwards and everything changes dramatically. Raw economics usually win over ideology. There's a group of people that ideologically are weirdly passionate about burning fossil fuel because historically that has worked well. They also don't believe in climate change, and they represent quite a bit of money and power. This group is doomed to be steam rolled by renewables. Because no matter what they believe, the reality of money is changing the world around them. Even in Texas, which has a lot of these people.
- throw383y8 2y agoBS. Solar industry is already commoditized, most solar panels are produced in China, incoming trade wars, unclear expenses about panel disposal, incoming taxation on solar energy producers..
- aranchelk 2y agoI really was hanging in there until I saw “matter compilers”
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoI realise he needs to boost his own business plan but > Half the world’s population suffers from hydrocarbon scarcity. Oil is the antidote to poverty. Synthetic fuels are the only way to increase oil supply, cut prices, and slash strategic and security supply chain issues. Synthetic fuels are the single biggest lever we have to double global economic growth. Another way is to massively reduce demand via electrification, which has already started and will only accelerate (as he details in the rest of this article). It also ruined the experience for me as I was thinking it was nice to have someone talking about "human flourishing" and "cheap energy" that wasn't actually just a shill for fossil fuels trading on outdated ideas of competitive cost of renewables. Yes he's selling fossil-free fuels which have a place but he's still feeling the need to pitch them as better than direct electrification which they clearly aren't in most cases.
- stevep98 2y agoMethane derived from co2 and h2o with solar energy is not a fossil fuel. Methane from the ground is a fossil fuel. Casey is going after industry that has a lot of inertia behind methane with a non fossil derived methane.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoYes, and many of those markets are not good fits for methane of any kind as electricity becomes cheaper e.g heating. It is disappointing, but understandable, that he feels the need to make methane in general seem more irreplaceable and vital to human happiness than it really is.
- _xnmw 2y agoWow, the fact that "solar has scaled up faster than any other sources of electricity" is news to me, and very encouraging. Can anyone comment on the viability of solar in countries that are not so sunny? Rain, clouds, winter solstice etc.? At what latitude parallels does the cost/benefit curve start to decrease? Obviously solar is more viable near the equator.
- Y-bar 2y ago> winter solstice This is a real problem for solar in some places. But on the other hand two a few other things are (marginally) positives: These places often have snow which contributes to better energy capture via scattering of light hitting the ground onto the panels. Lower temperatures can often give better efficiency for the panels. And most importantly: These places can have 20+ hours of daily sunlight in the summer.
- peanut-walrus 2y agoThe solar output for Nordic countries during the winter is basically 0. Which is a massive problem, because winter is also when you need the most energy. During the summer, Nordics are already at solar capacity with electricity prices often dropping negative. So basically you are producing electricity when it is already abundant and making nothing from it and not producing anything when it is actually needed.
- joak 2y agoThis is why it makes sense to synthesize methane in summer, when electricity is super abundant, to use it in winter when energy is most needed.
- euroderf 2y agoMethane? Ammonia? Hydrogen? Molten salt? Sand battery? What are the options for dwellings of various sizes for the unusual situation at extreme north latitudes ?
- donatj 2y agoIf we caught had imaginary panels of 100% efficiency, it would take a perpetually sunny area the size of Delaware to match the United States current needs. With the move to electric cars, and the average American family owning 1.88 cars according to the Department of Transportation, we're going to expect the demand on the power grid to roughly triple in the next decade or so. It will quickly become more akin to the area of Connecticut. Then considering solar panels are only roughly twenty percent efficient, that area becomes closer to the size of Maryland. Solar just isn't practical in actuality, the energy density is too low. They're promoted by woo peddlers who failed basic math classes. All this suggests that nuclear power is the better option. The environmental impact and industrial costs of manufacturing, transporting, maintaining and replacing the insanely vast number of solar panels needed to meet our energy demands exceeds the long-term negative impacts associated with nuclear power plants, even considering waste management and potential risks.
- Robin_Message 2y agoOr a tenth of the area of Arizona, the first desert-y state I checked (not a USAian so maybe there are even better options?) Pretty sure the USA easily has the land area for sufficient solar
- Teever 2y agoYou're going about this the wrong way. While in many ways it's more efficient to build out large scale solar farms in the way you describe there are alternatives. What if we covered the roofs and parkings lots of every big box store with solar panels? And residential roofs? There are projects in California to cover canals with panels. The panels also double as cover to minimize water evaporation from the canal. What if we cover above ground LRT tracks with solar panels? There's so much space in our urban environments that we can put panels on, and by putting the panels closer to where the energy that they generate is used there are massive savings in distribution infrastructure costs as well as wasted electricity.
- _fizz_buzz_ 2y agoIf you look at any land use map it becomes very obvious that it is very feasible to use pv to produce electricity for the US [1]. Also, pv can be combined with other land uses: above parking lots, warehouses, e.g. sheep can grass underneath solar farms ( agrivoltaics[2]), also deserts have lots of underutilized space. [1] e.g. https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/the-us-is-cow-country-and-other-lessons-from-this-land-use-map/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/the-us-is-cow-country-and-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics
- verzali 2y agoWhy does he keep using learning rate in his charts? Is that what we used to call just gradient? Or is he trying to imply some kind of machine learning/AI is behind the trends he is pointing to?
- choeger 2y agoIt's a long-used term for improvements in manufacturing due to increased scale.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- HPsquared 2y agoApparently called "learning curve". Learning rate is generally understood to have a different meaning. This article instead uses the term "learning curve index" https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/learning-curve.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/learning-curve.asp
- janmalec 2y agoSolar energy has a place in the modern grid but some crucial information is missing from this commercial. Energy return on energy invested. When you calculate the amount of land, mined resources, labor, waste disposal issues and other resources needed to make the dream building a vast excess of solar, upgrading the grid to accommodate it and storing energy in hydrocarbons or even hydrogen, you begin to realize how far fetched this dream is. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. We will use the technologies described but when something sounds too good to be true, it is. But the hype is huge. Hydrogen has much more people working on it in the EU Commission than nuclear despite nuclear being the biggest single electricity source in EU and hydrogen still in the prototype stage.
- practicemaths 2y ago[dead]
- whazor 2y agoBoth solar and wind will create many periods of abundant electricity. This is happening. EU is betting on hydrogen as a strategy for dealing with this abundance. There is a hydrogen ladder [1], which describes the best opportunities currently known for hydrogen. 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oZ3k6RCf8Y9YLKorogDeEB1Sp8nMuxqi/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oZ3k6RCf8Y9YLKorogDeEB1Sp8n...
- janmalec 2y agoThey already create periods of abundant electricity, which is why we have negative prices. In practice this means you have to pay the producers for the electricity and then pay once more someone to take it and use it. This could be solved by removing the guaranteed purchasing price and dispatch priority, but then the entire solar economy becomes a lot different. While periods of abundant electricity might seem like a good business opportunity, it turns out it is not easy to efficiently use huge amounts of electricity that come and go according to the weather. Most factories need to have reliable production to be economical.
- Teever 2y ago
- rulalala 2y agoYes but beware of a shit storm of bad news (unable to assess how much disinformation would they contain) on the sector, see for example https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/solar-panel-supply-german-electricity-prices-negative-renewable-demand-green-2024-5 https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/solar-p... Particularly this piece of news seems toxic to me, as selling energy to other markets is an obvious response.
- XorNot 2y agoIf the power prices are negative, it implies the other markets are also saturated (or the grid interconnections are). Power prices going negative is a failure state not "good news" because it implies that active protection of other generators economic viability is being exercised to protect against externalities - i.e. your gas fired peakers can't make any money during the day, but when the solar goes off at night you still need them. Therefore, the gas fired peakers have to be sponsored to continue existing to service the demand at other times.
- distances 2y ago> Therefore, the gas fired peakers have to be sponsored to continue existing to service the demand at other times. They don't need sponsoring, if they're needed at night then the nighttime energy prices will reflect the costs including the downtime. Which is then a business opportunity for storage technologies to become feasible.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- goblin89 2y agoIt’s easy to push for solar in Europe and the US if >80% of the panels are made in China, a country which not only benefits from increased sales of said panels but is also (hardly coincidentally) leading the planet by the number of new coal plants being built.
- _fizz_buzz_ 2y agoBut china is also leading the planet by pv being deployed
- goblin89 2y agoIf CCP did not manage to create that image, developed countries would have much more difficulty funneling taxpayer money to PRC. It’s easy to lead if everyone else is behind, and it pays for itself (and for future coal plants, I suppose[0]). [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522001756#fig1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152...