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Amory 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

Amory 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 ago
I 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.
- riffraff 2y ago
  > But we're quite far away from that How do you know? I'm an optimist and I think this is true, but what makes you certain this is true and we're not gonna hit a wall soon?
  - locallost 2y ago
    What are the obstacles? The only one I can think of is lobbying and politics, e.g. there was a report recently that Trump is selling favors to the fossil fuel industry - a cool billion now for future privileges when he's in the office. I think that's a real possibility, but my view on that is that this will just shoot his own country in the foot. The first one now will later be last - if you hop on the wrong train you'll be going nowhere. Technically I think the biggest advantage is that it's mostly trivial to install and maintain. There's probably a fair deal of complexity in the technology, but it's all contained in a module, it's plug and play. Beta didn't lose to VHS because it was a lesser format. Worse is better. This keeps projects on time and budget, it makes people invest further in it, capacity grows and the prices keep plummeting. This attracts more people into it, rinse repeat. It causes investments to grow in complementary technology and we are seeing that now with batteries and other forms of storage. There is already now a growing panel recycling industry, etc.
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      The biggest obstacle is the lack of demand for intermittent power. Most countries that take renewable energy seriously have already reached the point, where the construction of new solar/wind depends on investments that can take advantage of it. Exponential growth is somewhere in the past, and further growth depends on the normal pace of industrial investments.
      - locallost 2y ago
        And yet those countries led the way in the record shattering 2023. Even if you look within the EU there are big differences between the countries, where some like Poland got serious about it less than 10 years ago. They will continue to grow rapidly. Take a look at outside of developed countries and you will see the rest of the world is still far behind, so there's still a huge untapped market. People follow what other people do. There are other factors too (battery prices going down, electrification etc).

jillesvangurp 2y ago

I 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.

riffraff 2y ago
> But we're quite far away from that How do you know? I'm an optimist and I think this is true, but what makes you certain this is true and we're not gonna hit a wall soon?
- locallost 2y ago
  What are the obstacles? The only one I can think of is lobbying and politics, e.g. there was a report recently that Trump is selling favors to the fossil fuel industry - a cool billion now for future privileges when he's in the office. I think that's a real possibility, but my view on that is that this will just shoot his own country in the foot. The first one now will later be last - if you hop on the wrong train you'll be going nowhere. Technically I think the biggest advantage is that it's mostly trivial to install and maintain. There's probably a fair deal of complexity in the technology, but it's all contained in a module, it's plug and play. Beta didn't lose to VHS because it was a lesser format. Worse is better. This keeps projects on time and budget, it makes people invest further in it, capacity grows and the prices keep plummeting. This attracts more people into it, rinse repeat. It causes investments to grow in complementary technology and we are seeing that now with batteries and other forms of storage. There is already now a growing panel recycling industry, etc.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    The biggest obstacle is the lack of demand for intermittent power. Most countries that take renewable energy seriously have already reached the point, where the construction of new solar/wind depends on investments that can take advantage of it. Exponential growth is somewhere in the past, and further growth depends on the normal pace of industrial investments.
    - locallost 2y ago
      And yet those countries led the way in the record shattering 2023. Even if you look within the EU there are big differences between the countries, where some like Poland got serious about it less than 10 years ago. They will continue to grow rapidly. Take a look at outside of developed countries and you will see the rest of the world is still far behind, so there's still a huge untapped market. People follow what other people do. There are other factors too (battery prices going down, electrification etc).