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While the US is busy trying to revive the oil-soaked 20th century, places like Namibia are leapfrogging straight into a distributed, solar-powered future with Y

While the US is busy trying to revive the oil-soaked 20th century, places like Namibia are leapfrogging straight into a distributed, solar-powered future with YouTube tutorials... It's like watching the fossil era get out-hustled in real time.

seydor 1y ago
To be fair the US is leading the world in solar and wind per capita EDIT: energy consumption from renewables, not installed capacity https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideControls=false&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Energy+or+Electricity=Primary+energy&Metric=Per+capita+consumption&Select+a+source=Renewables&country=USA~CHN~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideCo... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-solar?tab=chart&time=2000..latest&country=CHN~USA~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-solar?tab=char... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-electricity-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA%7EOWID_EU27%7ECHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-electricity-per-capi...
- svantana 1y ago
  What is your source for that statement? According to [1], countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Denmark are way ahead of the US in those respects. [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/ https://app.electricitymaps.com/
- ludwigschubert 1y ago
  The US is at half the per capital levels of Sweden, and seems to lag behind most of Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-generation-from-solar-and-wind?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-ge... Do I misunderstand?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- aa-jv 1y ago
  This is false. On solar - China installed 93 GW in May 2025 alone - this exceeds the US' combined solar additions over the three years from 2022 to 2024. The US' total solar additions, even over 10 years (92.7 GW), would still be lower than China’s cumulative capacity additions in recent years. China installed 277 GW in 2024 alone. The US simply does not lead the world in solar and wind per capita, trailing countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia in both generation (10th at 1,889 kWh) and capacity (~957–1,125 watts).
- lentil_soup 1y ago
  those are interesting links, but it doesn't account for the amount of energy each person consumes in each region. Probably this one is better? it's the share of the electricity from renewables https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideControls=false&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Energy+or+Electricity=Primary+energy&Metric=Share+of+total&Select+a+source=Renewables&country=USA~CHN~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideCo...
cheschire 1y ago
Those are vastly different scales you’re comparing. I doubt Namibia vs America will be another Tesla vs Ford. The whole point of the current American efforts about oil seems to be reinvigorating economic growth. Oil supply chains are a lot easier to manipulate into growth strategies than renewables. Countries that have leapfrogged into energy independence are doing great but thats not hustle. They’re ensuring their isolation for years to come. And to be clear that may not be a bad thing for them.
- loudmax 1y ago
  Reinvigorating economic growth is the stated intent. The effectiveness of these policies will take longer to sort out, and will probably be argued over for decades. But I think even ascribing economic growth as the intent is generous. The economy was already growing vigorously. Most of the policies we're seeing now are performative posturing.
philipallstar 1y ago
The oil-soaked 20th century created all the millions of necessary precursors to miracles like phones and youtube and people in Namibia being able to get them. It's not out-hustled; it's just a miniscle increment. But it's good to see.
- jjulius 1y ago
  >... miracles like... youtube... ... miracle?
  - teitoklien 1y ago
    lol, you have no idea just how hard it is to make something as mammoth size financially viable or even sustainable as a business, due to sheer technological bottlenecks in video streaming, encoding/decoding videos at that scale, and everything else. It is a technological marvel, similar in comparison to designing and building an F-35 fighter jet or anything else. It requires custom Hardware Accelerators designed at a chip level, on top of decades of algorithmic refining of video encoder decoders in stuff like gstreamer or ffmpeg, refining video streaming at inconsistent cellular data networks, various ISPs doing shenanigans with ports, etc. Storing and ingesting that much video data at "Free" initial pricing, streaming that much data to viewers, building analytics algorithms to pair advertisements with watchers, to get a high enough conversion rate to make ads economically viable enough while having minimal number of ads per vids. Even an infinite money printer like google would struggle were it not for systematically solving technology at all levels from hardware, to chip design, to algorithms, to network level tuning, to frontend device optimizations, etc. And has been made possible by only the cumulative effort of humankind to build such advanced sophisticated systems in the palm of our devices such that even a normie average iphone 16e has more compute capacity than early 1990s or so, much more. It is a miracle, in every shape and form.
    - the_sleaze_ 1y ago
      Beautifully put
    - kjkjadksj 1y ago
wanderingstan 1y ago
“The Innovator's Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen described how big companies fail when against new startups because they can’t let go of their fat margins for a new technology that (at first) appears to be inferior, even a toy. (His examples are Japanese motorbikes and hard disks) Seems the United States is now trapped in the same dilemma. It can’t let go of those fat oil profits to embrace the new —but rapidly improving— renewable tech, even if it’s clear that that’s where the market for energy is heading. I.E., the big company (or nation) must sabotage some of their current profit centers in order to remain long term competitive. (Reposting a comment I made on nytimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china-clean-energy-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china... )
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  Hum... The profits from oil aren't as fat as they used to be. In fact, if you subtract the giant amount of subsides, there may be almost to nothing there. That's to say that no, countries and governments do not behave like companies.
  - wanderingstan 1y ago
    I think you might be in agreement with me in the main, just quibbling on the timing? The US's addiction to "fat oil profits" goes back over a hundred years, and that's what the NYTimes author argues is driving the current administration's push to keep those profits going. Whether there actually are such profits is a different question. This is exactly the behavior of the big companies in "The Innovators Dilemma": continuing to try and squeeze profits out of the dying old paradigm. (IBM clinging to hardware and mainframes, US motorcycle manufacturers not embracing small sport bikes, etc.) That's to say that, yes, countries and governments can indeed behave like companies.
    - marcosdumay 1y ago
      No, that's not the behavior of big companies in "The Innovators Dilemma". Those companies optimize for corporation profit. If the US was optimizing for societal wealth or government revenue they would be pushing the country into renewables. On reality many big corporations get corrupt management that destroy corporate profit and optimize for the managers personal wealth. Those ones act like the US is acting. But that's not the behavior that book is about.
jer2209 1y ago
Its interesting you give Namibia as an example. Every major oil company has exploration projects there today. It is clearly part of the future strategy for the country. When I visited for vacation not too long ago, I remember the O&G industry being very much visible from the shore in Walvis Bay. Although, given that the majority of the country is uninhabited. I imagine, it is an ideal place for solar. Amazing place, highly recommend to visit.
analyte123 1y ago
I sincerely doubt the Namibian government is giving out thousands of dollars per household in solar subsidies, like the US does up until the end of this year. I doubt Pakistan does either, another country noted in the article where solar usage is expanding. If solar is a mature technology and an economic inevitability as contended in the article (I agree), there is a much weaker case for subsidizing it. In any case, most solar installation costs in the US seem to go to permits and expensive, inefficient contractors - endemic problems which affect all types of development and are probably only made worse by throwing free money at them.
jadeopteryx 1y ago
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seydor 1y ago

To be fair the US is leading the world in solar and wind per capita EDIT: energy consumption from renewables, not installed capacity https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideControls=false&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Energy+or+Electricity=Primary+energy&Metric=Per+capita+consumption&Select+a+source=Renewables&country=USA~CHN~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideCo... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-solar?tab=chart&time=2000..latest&country=CHN~USA~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-solar?tab=char... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-electricity-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA%7EOWID_EU27%7ECHN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wind-electricity-per-capi...

svantana 1y ago
What is your source for that statement? According to [1], countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Denmark are way ahead of the US in those respects. [1] https://app.electricitymaps.com/ https://app.electricitymaps.com/
ludwigschubert 1y ago
The US is at half the per capital levels of Sweden, and seems to lag behind most of Europe: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-generation-from-solar-and-wind?tab=table https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-ge... Do I misunderstand?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
aa-jv 1y ago
This is false. On solar - China installed 93 GW in May 2025 alone - this exceeds the US' combined solar additions over the three years from 2022 to 2024. The US' total solar additions, even over 10 years (92.7 GW), would still be lower than China’s cumulative capacity additions in recent years. China installed 277 GW in 2024 alone. The US simply does not lead the world in solar and wind per capita, trailing countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia in both generation (10th at 1,889 kWh) and capacity (~957–1,125 watts).
lentil_soup 1y ago
those are interesting links, but it doesn't account for the amount of energy each person consumes in each region. Probably this one is better? it's the share of the electricity from renewables https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideControls=false&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Energy+or+Electricity=Primary+energy&Metric=Share+of+total&Select+a+source=Renewables&country=USA~CHN~OWID_EU27 https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&hideCo...

cheschire 1y ago

Those are vastly different scales you’re comparing. I doubt Namibia vs America will be another Tesla vs Ford. The whole point of the current American efforts about oil seems to be reinvigorating economic growth. Oil supply chains are a lot easier to manipulate into growth strategies than renewables. Countries that have leapfrogged into energy independence are doing great but thats not hustle. They’re ensuring their isolation for years to come. And to be clear that may not be a bad thing for them.

loudmax 1y ago
Reinvigorating economic growth is the stated intent. The effectiveness of these policies will take longer to sort out, and will probably be argued over for decades. But I think even ascribing economic growth as the intent is generous. The economy was already growing vigorously. Most of the policies we're seeing now are performative posturing.

philipallstar 1y ago

The oil-soaked 20th century created all the millions of necessary precursors to miracles like phones and youtube and people in Namibia being able to get them. It's not out-hustled; it's just a miniscle increment. But it's good to see.

jjulius 1y ago
>... miracles like... youtube... ... miracle?
- teitoklien 1y ago
  lol, you have no idea just how hard it is to make something as mammoth size financially viable or even sustainable as a business, due to sheer technological bottlenecks in video streaming, encoding/decoding videos at that scale, and everything else. It is a technological marvel, similar in comparison to designing and building an F-35 fighter jet or anything else. It requires custom Hardware Accelerators designed at a chip level, on top of decades of algorithmic refining of video encoder decoders in stuff like gstreamer or ffmpeg, refining video streaming at inconsistent cellular data networks, various ISPs doing shenanigans with ports, etc. Storing and ingesting that much video data at "Free" initial pricing, streaming that much data to viewers, building analytics algorithms to pair advertisements with watchers, to get a high enough conversion rate to make ads economically viable enough while having minimal number of ads per vids. Even an infinite money printer like google would struggle were it not for systematically solving technology at all levels from hardware, to chip design, to algorithms, to network level tuning, to frontend device optimizations, etc. And has been made possible by only the cumulative effort of humankind to build such advanced sophisticated systems in the palm of our devices such that even a normie average iphone 16e has more compute capacity than early 1990s or so, much more. It is a miracle, in every shape and form.
  - the_sleaze_ 1y ago
    Beautifully put
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago

wanderingstan 1y ago

“The Innovator's Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen described how big companies fail when against new startups because they can’t let go of their fat margins for a new technology that (at first) appears to be inferior, even a toy. (His examples are Japanese motorbikes and hard disks) Seems the United States is now trapped in the same dilemma. It can’t let go of those fat oil profits to embrace the new —but rapidly improving— renewable tech, even if it’s clear that that’s where the market for energy is heading. I.E., the big company (or nation) must sabotage some of their current profit centers in order to remain long term competitive. (Reposting a comment I made on nytimes article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china-clean-energy-power.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/30/climate/china... )

marcosdumay 1y ago
Hum... The profits from oil aren't as fat as they used to be. In fact, if you subtract the giant amount of subsides, there may be almost to nothing there. That's to say that no, countries and governments do not behave like companies.
- wanderingstan 1y ago
  I think you might be in agreement with me in the main, just quibbling on the timing? The US's addiction to "fat oil profits" goes back over a hundred years, and that's what the NYTimes author argues is driving the current administration's push to keep those profits going. Whether there actually are such profits is a different question. This is exactly the behavior of the big companies in "The Innovators Dilemma": continuing to try and squeeze profits out of the dying old paradigm. (IBM clinging to hardware and mainframes, US motorcycle manufacturers not embracing small sport bikes, etc.) That's to say that, yes, countries and governments can indeed behave like companies.
  - marcosdumay 1y ago
    No, that's not the behavior of big companies in "The Innovators Dilemma". Those companies optimize for corporation profit. If the US was optimizing for societal wealth or government revenue they would be pushing the country into renewables. On reality many big corporations get corrupt management that destroy corporate profit and optimize for the managers personal wealth. Those ones act like the US is acting. But that's not the behavior that book is about.

jer2209 1y ago

Its interesting you give Namibia as an example. Every major oil company has exploration projects there today. It is clearly part of the future strategy for the country. When I visited for vacation not too long ago, I remember the O&G industry being very much visible from the shore in Walvis Bay. Although, given that the majority of the country is uninhabited. I imagine, it is an ideal place for solar. Amazing place, highly recommend to visit.

analyte123 1y ago

I sincerely doubt the Namibian government is giving out thousands of dollars per household in solar subsidies, like the US does up until the end of this year. I doubt Pakistan does either, another country noted in the article where solar usage is expanding. If solar is a mature technology and an economic inevitability as contended in the article (I agree), there is a much weaker case for subsidizing it. In any case, most solar installation costs in the US seem to go to permits and expensive, inefficient contractors - endemic problems which affect all types of development and are probably only made worse by throwing free money at them.

jadeopteryx 1y ago

[dead]