5 ms·
Very misleading title: it should be "Solar leads global energy growth for the first time". Still good news, but a long, long way from solar becoming the world'
by decimalenough 6mo ago
Very misleading title: it should be "Solar leads global energy growth for the first time".
Still good news, but a long, long way from solar becoming the world's primary source of energy.
- iso1631 6mo ago> solar becoming the world's primary source of energy Solar has always been the primary source of energy, Something like 99.95%, with geothermal taking 90% of the rest and tidal being basically zero
- leonidasrup 6mo agoYou can look at coal, oil, gas as form of compressed solar energy, because all of them have biological source, stored millions of year ago. It's just burning coal, oil, gas has nasty side effects. " Volcanic coal-burning in Siberia led to climate change 252 million years ago. Extensive burning in Siberia was a cause of the Permo-Triassic extinction " https://www.nsf.gov/news/volcanic-coal-burning-siberia-led-climate-change https://www.nsf.gov/news/volcanic-coal-burning-siberia-led-c...
- ilogik 6mo agoWhat about nuclear?
- guepe 6mo agoFuel was created by the explosion of supernovae, still solar but not our sun.
- pfdietz 6mo agoProbably neutron star collisions, actually.
- philipallstar 6mo agoIf it's not our sun then it isn't solar.
- triceratops 6mo agoPedantry I can get behind. Cheers
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Lambdanaut 6mo agoBy that logic, all of the Earth and the moon were once parts of stars, so tidal and geothermal are also solar. When people say "solar energy", they are usually referring to first order solar energy, directly from photons, not second or third order solar energy after it has been trapped into other sources of potential energy.
- eqvinox 6mo agoTidal kinda isn't solar since it's from rotation's and orbits' energies though.
- iso1631 6mo agotiny insignificant amounts
- 6mo ago
- eucryphia 6mo agoShould it be ‘solar leading energy subsidy growth’.
- deaux 6mo agoNo chance, fossil fuels are subsidized more. A large share of solar growth is from countries like Pakistan who have had some subsidies but total dollar amount of them is trivial.
- dzhiurgis 6mo agoGot source? China only ended solar panel export subsidy this month.
- RALaBarge 6mo ago[dead]
- actionfromafar 6mo agoThe US oil subsidy currently is projected to increase the Pentagon budget from one trillion to one and half. I bet one could build a lot of solar panels for 500 billion dollars, and you can use them more than once, too.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- deaux 6mo agoPricing fossil fuel pollution at zero is the biggest subsidy in the world bar none. Contrast this with for example nuclear power, where potential pollution risks as well as storage of its spent resources are some of the biggest costs. If they were subsidized equally to fossil fuels, the costs of those would be very low, with the public simply paying the price for any negative health effects. Oil is directly subsidized in most oil producing countries. Go look at what fuel costs in Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, vs what they could sell it for on international markets. That's a subsidy. Jet fuel is universally exempt from tax. Try finding any other energy source that is.
- kube-system 6mo agoYes, from the source report, for total generation capacity, solar is in a distant sixth: Coal: 10858 TWh Natural Gas: 6822 TWh Hydro: 4470 TWh Nuclear: 2859 TWh Wind: 2723 TWh Solar: 2653 TWh Decent growth, but still a long way to go.
- ViewTrick1002 6mo agoThe energy system has investment cycles counted in decades. Looking at TWh of renewables added each year we will have grids entirely dominated by them in 10-15 years. That is lightning speed for the energy system, and we’re still speeding up.
- Neywiny 6mo agoBut people still want results immediately. Which is the explanation I've seen for why nuclear isn't as big. Takes multiple times longer for a nuclear plant to come online vs coal. So some aspects are decades, others are one politician term.
- rocqua 6mo agoThis delay in nuclear means that, by now, nuclear is no longer a solution. Had we started with nuclear somewhere in the first decade of this millennium, then it would have been a good solution to climate change, and we would be in a better position. But in our current position, nuclear is too slow, and luckily we have alternatives in wind and especially solar. Where the main advantage of solar is how quickly it’s scaling. Notably, the slowness in building nuclear also limits how fast you can improve the process of building nuclear. Whereas solar is so quick to build you can learn lessons and try innovation much faster.
- kilroy123 6mo agoI think it will happen in the next 5 years. Not 10-15. It's just becoming a necessity for a lot of counties at this point.
- xbmcuser 6mo ago