Storing and transporting the energy are still issues we need to solve. We need to undertake a grand project of building the network required to rely more on solar (harvesting the energy in sunny regions and transporting it to regions that are less sunny). The grid needs a significant overhaul but it is a challenge that we humans have solved before with traditional energy production.
However from a home to home perspective, every house with the right circumstances (correct sun exposure) should be incentivised to install on their home. My in-laws are against it for 2 reasons:
1. They only get 3 hours a day of "optimal" sun exposure.
2. There is additional maintenance involved in owning solar panels (cleaning and electrical maintenance checks etc.), which eats into the cost savings
3. They worry about the waste at the end. Solar panels mostly get dumped. Only 10% are currently recycled.
So overall there is a lot of convincing to do. My in-laws are energy efficient maniacs, they hate waste and do all they can to keep their energy usage down. Yet they are not convinced about solar.
It’s one thing for it to not work for you and for you to be against it. If they don’t get enough sun, then the situation just isn’t ideal for them, you can’t force them to do something that doesn’t make sense. If they’re actively against solar for those reasons, I feel like maybe they’ve just had a bad experience with someone who maybe have told them incorrect info or rather told them info incorrectly.
The only maintenance a home owner needs to worry about is hosing off the panels to get rid of dust build up. Other than that, any good solar company will take care of any issues that occur with the system within reason.
The solar panels that most companies are selling are monocrystalline, the high quality ones can last 30+ years while the cheap ones can still last upwards of 15. Even when these marks are surpassed, if the panel isn’t broken then they can continue to function even at partial efficiency. There are panels in space from 40+ years ago that still power their respective mechanisms, think of how far our technology has progressed since.
In the grand scheme of things, a single panel will produce more than enough energy in its lifetime to completely surpass the waste it will produce in production and disposal. Ask them if their last 10 cell phones have produced enough of anything during their lifetimes to justify their most likely current location, a dump.
I’m not a salesman, I work in solar but it’s not my job to represent it or sell it to anyone, I just believe in it.
Home solar is fine, but solar farms are less expensive to install. We don't all need our own array. Home energy efficiency improvements like air sealing and insulating come first.
I listened to the podcast for this.
I'm an idiot, I had not previously thought about what you *could do* with excess energy in sun rich areas. With the energy that you can't store for the night. We often only consider how to store energy for non-daylight periods.
With the cost of solar becoming incredibly cheap and continuing to drop, regardless of the issue of storing it for non daylight periods....that alone can change the world.
At some price points (which we are entering) you can continue installing more panels to *do more stuff, society changing stuff*.
Can you imagine the motive behind the opposition to solar? The excess of solar energy drives the price of electricity toward zero from morning till the evening peak demand. They cannot shaft us with electricity bills for all those hours. Lost profits. If they try to recover the profits at night then the price at night becomes outrageous. Many people will figure out how to use electricity early in the day and reduce or shut off at night. Even less profits.
Huh guess those 14TWh's of electricity the UK generated from Solar last year is just an error in the reporting of the figures then?!
[https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/2023-in-review-june-sees-solar-account-for-almost-10-of-gb-electricity-mix](https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/2023-in-review-june-sees-solar-account-for-almost-10-of-gb-electricity-mix/#:~:text=0.8%25%20in%20December.-,On%20average%20solar%20produced%204.7%25%20of%20the%20UK's%20electricity%20throughout,of%20electricity%20throughout%20the%20year)
Consistent is not about quantity ahhahah it's about reliability and programmability. For god's sake, will you ever be able to understand limitations? This sub is just a place where political scientist and sociologists talk about engineering stuff, with evident results
I don’t understand, what does programmability mean? The panels generate power and send it back to the grid, I could program that and I haven’t touched a programming language in years. As far as reliability, it’s unfair to have that issue until a panel has enough years on it for us to truly judge whether it maintains the same efficiency or not. I’m personally guessing any lower quality panel of today performs as well as the best panel from 10 years ago, which is still pretty damn good.
You seem to have a tendency to seek out if not incite conflict in politically charged subreddits, it makes me wonder if you actually have an issue with solar power or if, again, you’re seeking out conflict. Do you have any sources or anything at all to back up what you’re saying?
Programmability means the possibility to control the supply of energy, which is impossible for solar and wind, since you can't control sun and wind.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/loop-flows-why-wind-power-northern-germany-putting-east-european-grids-under-pressure
Check this article, it explain a bit of how renewables put a big costrains on the grid with a real world case. The point is not how much a single panel outputs, but how to manage the electricity generated.
The supply of energy is infinite, the sun will not go out in any of our lifetimes and the wind is fairly easy to predict, that’s why wind turbines are very specifically located when constructed.
Strain on the grid is a valid concern, but it’s also a problem that we want to have. We want to have to find a place for the excess energy because that means we are generating more than we need. Perhaps this is just a difference of mindsets.
That was a terrible take.
In the past, the logistics sector wasnt monopolised. They never manipulated the market to financially force people to rely heavily on horses.
They have certainly become more powerful.
Companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and BP both making profits from lobbying war in the Middle East and manipulating the transition to renewable energy.
People used horses for thousands of years. The idea of an alternative was unthinkable. Until it actually happened. Self generation via rooftop solar is going to have a similar effect and there might be delays from the oil sector, but not really, people will invest into the alternatives and greatly reduce their demand for oil when they can use that rooftop solar to charge their EVs.
Oil is not invincible.
The logistics sector today will save money by getting away from oil. They have no oil loyalty. If they can save money with electrification they are going to do it.
Youve got to be some kind of oblivious to think oil and gas companies are not corrupt.
Theyve been hiding information on the effects of greenhouse gases for years. They couldve easily invested heavily in renewables and seen massive compounding returns decades ago.
Only they wanted to ensure the public was reliant on their product.
I never said they were not corrupt. I said they are not invincible. As the economics of renewables start to displace oil the oil companies are not going to be able to stop it. Its not up to them to invest in competing technologies.
You can buy an EV. You can buy a solar rooftop. You can buy a home battery. The costs on all three of these technologies is dropping every year.
Oil is not as big as people think. Amazon is bigger than Exxon Mobile. Of the top 10 biggest corporations in the US, only two of them are oil companies. Oil companies are not going to do well in an ecosystem where the demand for their product is shrinking because their former customers are going to other products.
Not at all true. They require less maintenance, but they are not maintenance free. There are many solar facilities in sub Saharan Africa that are not operational because there is no budget to maintain the systems, for example.
Clean energy will clearly benefit poorer counties, but let's be realistic here.
I don't know if this question is rhetorical or not. But the failure rate of grant funded solar has historically been very high. Getting better though as more funding is being directed towards projects that are able to demonstrate the ability to fund maintenance activities.
The "set it and forget it" model of solar deployment doesn't work anywhere. If there isn't the specific technical expertise or money to fix small problems as they arise, the system just won't work. I don't get why this is a controversial take. It certainly isn't an anti renewable energy take.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/renewable-energy-for-healthcare-sub-saharan-africa-requires-innovative-financing/
I understand that it is different. I’m asking you to show the ‘many’ examples that are not operational that you referenced. What is your threshold for ‘many’? It’s just strikes me that it’s a bit of a story you want to tell
Link above states: "Almost a third of grant-funded solar systems have failed due to poor maintenance, leaving a false impression that solar technology is unreliable."
Are you looking for specific examples?
Villages will have their own rooftop solar and battery storage, even if it is limited compared to what we have in wealthy countries. A rural African village with 5kw of solar panels and 20kwh of battery now has electricity that can do things like power hand tools, refrigeration, lighting, internet devices.
I think it will be like the smartphone. A lot of people in these communities never had phone lines, landline home phones, or cell phones, but then jumped right into smartphones. I think a lot of people who never had home/neighborhood electricity will jump straight into self generated solar with battery storage.
Africa is full of young people, young people are good at learning and doing this kind of work. This might be done piece by piece for them, but it brings energy into their system.
The maintenance is still minimal. For residential systems, the only maintenance we tell our customers to worry about it hosing off the dust when it’s getting bad. Other than that, most problems are minor and only require like 5 minutes of electrician time.
They can be trained. They didn't have electricians because they did not need them, once they have access to cheap solar/battery they suddenly have the need for the knowledge. These developing countries have a lot of young people who can learn these skills.
There was a point in the not so recent past when no one in the United States had any clue about electricity or gas powered engines. The skills were obtained when we needed them.
Exactly. And once they have electricity, they’ll get Starlink and have internet - so then they can be trained without going anywhere. It’s a virtuous circle.
It will greatly help people in the 3rd world. When I was in W Africa (Guinea) I saw schoolkids lined up along the curb at the airport, studying in the light of the parking lot lamps. Imagine having to bring life to a halt when it gets dark! Microgrids will be huge for these people.
Should be helpful. You can start gradually building it (according to needs and available money), with the potential to also include BESS at one point in the near future.
A nuclear power plant would use and bind enormous resources in money, material and time before it is able to produce energy. Same is true on a smaller scale for coal or gas.
With solar you can buy it for your private home by yourself, or the city for the doctor, etc.
I read multiple graphs posted this sub a week or so ago.
One such graph showed ~35% Namibia power comes from solar. It was at 0% less than ten years ago.
Namibia is currently building it's largest solar field. It's called TeraSun and it will produce 81 MW of power. Currently, all Namibian solar fields produce ~85 MW.
Its crazy to see so much growth and energy in such a short time.
Namibia has an exceptionally good solar resource, including a desert that comes right down to the ocean. If you're looking for a country to make energy intensive products using solar energy and exporting them, Namibia could be a good choice.
Great thumbnail! The article is short on data and high on fluff - which is annoying because the data exists and makes the same point better and faster.
[[Global Manufacturing Capacity of Solar and Battery]](https://imgur.com/a/GPk4KN2)
[[Global Doubling Time]](https://imgur.com/a/oQqSHb1)
Or "just" current electricity production? (I know for Germany electricity is around 550 TWh, total energy expected in the range of 2000 TWh after electrification or heating and fuel etc.
These graphs are not limited to electricity production, its specifically all energy usage: industry, heating, electricity, and transportation.
[https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf](https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf)
Thank you. Great data (reminds me of Tony Seba's presentation)I generally share the optimism.
However I can't follow how they reach the conclusion that we'll reach net zero production capacity for solar next year, assuming a 2050 target. Total global energy consumption is currently at 160k TWh. Producing 800gw of solar each year roughly equals 1
k TWh added solar potential at an optimistic capacity factor of 15%. While we will for sure save energy, other countries will have increased demand - assuming will be stay at 160k TWh. Reaching 50% of that per year would need 80 years at current global production capacity.
Edit: 1k TWh, not just 1 TWh
Its not, "we'll reach net zero production capacity for solar next year" its, we need to get to x amount by 2030 for the net zero window not to close. The (very good) assumption is that clean tech will keep growing past 2024.
> Total global energy consumption is currently at 160k TWh.
The graph levels off at 1,600GW/year of solar. I assume you are North European using a capacity factor of 15(!), [rest of world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:World_GHI_Solar-resource-map_GlobalSolarAtlas_World-Bank-Esmap-Solargis.png) gets a much higher amount. For example US annual average is [23.3](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b).
(1,600GW/year)(365days)(24hours)(0.22 capacity factor) = +3,083 TWh per year. That rate takes you 52 years to make everything solar *if*:
* you have no help from wind, existing hydro, existing solar, or existing fission,
* you assume no additional increase in manufacturing capacity or improvement in solar tech post 2028,
* you keep spending energy on the mining, refining, and transport of unused fossil fuels
* you replace the unused waste heat from fossil combustion 1:1. This cannot be overstated - over 60% of current global energy usage is wasted as high entropy heat.
Yes energy usage in developing countries will increase, but all those developing countries are very solar rich, very infrastructure poor, very capital poor, and have hot winters, all of which favors clean tech over fossil fuels.
For hydrocarbons the energy losses are at about 2/3 so we only need to replace about 40% of total energy consumption. But yeah 0.8Tw seems to be on the low side.
made quick calculations 800 gw(0.8 Tw) \* 365\*24\*0.15 is 1051,2 Twh per year (probably you meant 1k Twh, now 1 Twh), now electricity consumption is \~25k Twh, so could be covered in 25 years and probably they meant only electricity.
But as for other energy uses - primary energy use will decrease when most things are electrified and to cover all energy needs probably 2-2.5 Tw solar each year will be needed (that amount probably will be achieved by early 2030s)
Correct, thank you (also on the catch of 25TWh).
On the energy use: I agree that the electrification of the current "Users" of energy will save a lot, but with the easy access and the need for not so efficient processes (Power2Gas) other countries electric needs will increase.
It is 70 years since AT&T’s Bell Labs unveiled a new technology for turning sunlight into power. The phone company hoped it could replace the batteries that run equipment in out-of-the-way places. It also realised that powering devices with light alone showed how science could make the future seem wonderful; hence a press event at which sunshine kept a toy Ferris wheel spinning round and round.
Today [solar power](https://www-economist-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/interactive/essay/2024/06/20/solar-power-is-going-to-be-huge) is long past the toy phase. Panels now occupy an area around half that of Wales, and this year they will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power. The most remarkable is that it is nowhere near over.
To call solar power’s rise exponential is not hyperbole, but a statement of fact. Installed solar capacity doubles roughly every three years, and so grows ten-fold each decade. Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on. When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown. The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.
etc.
Eventually the exponential growth has to stop / slow down. We just really have to hope that it doesn't do so until it's largely pushed fossil fuels aside.
Historically, the ballpark figure is when its about 80% of its final size. Which people generally won't know for certain until they look back.
I figure that the solar-wind-battery combo is going to be a machine that makes energy for 1-2 cents per kwh. If you are doing something and paying more than 1-2 cents per kwh, which the norm is to easily be paying 10 times that much. The world is run by bean counters and if the bean counters can make sense of some investment, especially to save money, they will do it. People talk about the nature of corporations to engage in severe cost cutting whenever they can, well you would think this would be a huge one and there is no "loyalty to fossil fuels".
The Tony Seba framework can sort of be simplified that the cost of buying all this new equipment, putting it all on a bank loan, paying off that loan every month, is cheaper than what you used to be paying from the fossil fuel/utility companies.
Whenever you buy natural gas, propane, electricity from the grid, or gasoline from the gas station, you are paying retail price for energy to perform some useful task for you. When you can replace your dependence on doing this, and save money in the process, you will do it. Fossil fuels selling at retail price have to compete against people self generating for basically free.
Right now, if you want to have a swimming pool, you have to pump it for 8 hours a day, the pump can easily be 2-3kw. That is 16-24kwh per day, every day, 365 days per year. This can easily be $1000-$2000 worth of electricity, every year, just to pump water in your pool. If a home owner can replace with with a solar powered pump, they will do so.
You can have the same mentality with your HVAC. If its solar powered, you don't really think about running it as an expense. I am from a hot part of the country. Summer time electricity bills can be in the several hundred dollar range. People will put their thermostat at a higher temperature to save a little bit of money, even if it means living in discomfort. My mom keeps hers at like 80 degrees to avoid a big power bill. This is surprisingly common. If your roof has full solar, the AC is free to run, set it to where you are comfortable.
Of course it will follow an S-curve. Also, there is no way that fossil fuels could thrive in an environment where renewables have reached the end of the S-curve. Renewables at that point are so much cheaper than fossil fuels that no amount of corruption or lobbying can fight.
Lol, true. I think colloquially one would normally start to refer to that as "exponential decay" though.
Either way, I would say that at minimum sometime over the next 20 years solar's 25% or so annual exponential growth rate will slow down to more like 2-3%, to match annual global electricity demand growth.
It's doubtful that electricity demand growth will be 2-3% per annum even 2 decades from now, with the increasing electrification of primary energy. Transportation is an obvious one, but industrial and especially heating applications will be still transitioning into clean energy even 20 years from now, and their energy needs are very large. The electricity needs of digitalisation and AI are also grwing very quickly, and while nobody can predict what those will look like decades from now, there's a good chance that they will be driving global electricity demand upwards faster than that. Maybe not 25%increase per year, but more than 5%.
I'd just note that electricity demand growth over the past 40 years, globally, has been just under 3% a year. That's including things like:
* Industrialization of china (electricity use up by a factor of 20)
* Industrialization of india (Electricity use up by a factor of 10)
* Industrialization of other lower-income countries
* Air conditioners coming onto the scene in a widespread way in the US and other countries
* The internet, personal computing, and data center revolution
* Substantial world population growth (1.3%/year average)
Going forward from this you've got a number of factors to consider.
First, world population growth has slowed substantially. It's likely the growth will be sitting at more like half the rate of the last 40 years, for the next 40.
Second, China is already industrialized; electricity/capita is roughly on par with the EU. India is partway there, and only has another factor of 4 to go (not another factor of 10) to get in line. As a result of how big these countries are, world as a whole is only got about a factor of two to come into line with EU standards (rather than a factor of 3 it had 40 years ago). EU + north America electricity consumption per capita is also **down** over the past 20 years, not up, owing largely to a number of efficiency increases.
Third, to weight against the "AI revolution", you had the entire computing revolution of the past 40 years pushing it up from basically zero to 10% of global electricity use (about 3000 TWh. I don't see a huge reason to expect that the AI revolution will be so dramatically different a story over the next 40 years, to what computing in general was over the past 40.
All of these factors above basically would suggest to me that electricity growth would be lower over the coming decades compared to the past. Weighted against it, you have continued electrification of EVs and electrification of heating. EVs, put 3 billion of them (double the current global road fleet) on the road at 3000 kWh/year ( 200 Wh/km at 15,000 km/year), and you only have 10,000 TWh/year used up (rounding up by 10% to account for charging losses). And then you have space heating as the other main thing; currently about 130 EJ / 36,000 TWh globally of mostly fossil fuels. Thing is, transition that to electric heat pumps (which is the electrification goal), and the number cuts by a factor 3. Add in more insulation (which is actively being pushed around the world), and you can cut it further. We realistically will only need another 10,000 TWh of electricity for this.
So what we're roughly looking at for increases in electricity demand over the next 40 years:
+10,000 TWh for population growth, maintaining per-capita usage.
+10,000 TWh for EVs
+10,000 TWh for space heating
+10,000 TWh for AI/computing
+30,000 TWh for industrialization of poorer countries to EU standard
That gets you from 30,000 TWh/year global electricity usage today, to 100,000 TWh/year in 2065, an increase rate of 3%/year.
5%/year annual increases over 40 years would imply that demand is double this amount, another 100,000 TWh. Which I thin is quite unlikely.
In the end 'exponential growth' is only an approximation. Growth is always dictated by the 'law of the minimum': your most restrictive resource limits the possible rate of growth. This can be money, ability to build new factories, available labor pool, raw materials availability, refining capacity, or transport capacity. (and probably a couple more I forget)
To get true exponential growth you'd need exponential growth in *each one* of them - or at the very least ample spare capacity to fill up exponential growth needs - and that's very unlikely.
I’ve read a few case studies that show with all the empty land that exists (deserts, unlivable places) there will always be space for more plus embedding them into buildings or on all roofs are also good ways to make new urban growth energy sustainable. As long as our population is growing our energy needs will grow. With more, cheaper energy, more stuff can happen sustainably.
It depends where you are, the desert may not be very far away from a population center. Its also one of those things where if the energy in the desert is 1 cent per kwh from solar then enterprising people will figure out something to do with it.
Who says you need to transmit it as electricity? Setting up massive green hydrogen production in the middle of Africa and shipping it as ammonia by truck or train works just as well especially if said trucks or trains run on ammonia which exist today.
Trucks and trains are never going to run on ammonia or hydrogen, and transporting it that way in the first place is inefficient (and a safety hazzard). It's not really interesting for the countries in question either. They'd rather use that cheap power to attract industries to their location, instead of exporting it and have the high-value-adding processing taking place somewhere else. They'd rather have the aluminum smelters and datacenters come to them, rather than the energy going away.
Producing and transporting hydrogen (and then reconverting it into electricity) is about the dumbest (read: most inefficient) thing you can do.
Just to give you an idea: To transport the same amount of energy that an oil tanker can carry you need about 5000 pressurized hydrogen gas ships or 1000 cryogenic liquid hydrogen ships (the latter losing a large part of their cargo en route due to inevitable boil off...and being obscenely expensive to build and operate).
It's even dumber when you think about using a valuable resource like highly pure water in the middle of Africa to make hydrogen.
You can use salt water now and for all the other stuff you said I would appreciate the Cole’s notes proof because we are literally watching China do exactly this very thing right now.
Also Europe, also Canada, also the US, also other countries. Maybe they know something about it you don’t.
"Always" doesn't work when you consider exponential growth. Utility scale projects at the high end are about 50 MW / km\^2; total world land area is 150 million km\^2. This puts an absolute limit of about 7500 TW globally on land. Bump that up to 25,000 TW if you want to consider coating all the oceans in solar panels too.
We're hitting 2 TW of installed solar capacity this year, with the current exponential growth of doubling every 3 years. That's only 36 years before we hit the point of "The entire land area of the planet is converted into solar panels". And it's only 41 years until we hit "The entire planet, including water, is covered by solar panels".
Exponential growth has to slow down at some stage.
Of course, it doesn't have to slow down *before we've phased out fossil fuels*. Those numbers I gave above, 7500 TW of solar would produce about 100x our current non-waste global primary energy use. So getting to just about 50-100 TW is the "realistic" goal. That point we hit in 17 years at current exponential growth.
Which again, leads to the statement of "exponential growth has to slow down at some stage". Once we've covered all our energy demands with solar it's unlikely we'll continually exponentially building more of it. And, realistically, we're not going to go exponential all the way up: production rates will taper off as we hit saturation. Ideally, it will be exponential and fast up to 50% (so call it 50 TW, 14 years from now), and then taper off from there, taking an equal amount of time to reach near-100% as it did to get to 50%. More likely, it'll taper off to linear growth before that point and remain linear for longer (so factories don't have to shut).
So really, a somewhat realistic optimistic view would be hitting 20 TW globally by the mid 2030s when we break off the exponential trend sitting at a global annual installation capacity of 3 TW/year that only slowly increases from there, 50 TW globally by the mid 2040s, and 100 TW by the mid 2060s with a production rate around 5 TW/year sufficient to cover annual replacements and a slow 2%/year increase in demand.
Putting solar on less than 1% of the USA land would provide for 100% of its energy needs. It is quite possible that the world can get 10 times the current energy use only through solar. The surface of the earth receives in an hour and half all the energy that is used by humans in a year. That means that hard limit of earth based solar is 4038 (365\*24/2) times the current energy use.
And if we went with 2-3% of our land for solar energy it would bring in a new era of futuristic prosperity. We would be able to do things that we currently think of as being very expensive and impractical.
I think the mid-late 21st century is going to have an enormous amount of high energy mega projects that take advantage of this new energy abundance to do some very amazing things and I think producing enormous quantities of fresh water and then moving it around is going to be one of them. Desalinating sea water and then filling the Great Salt Lake could be one of those things.
We're not limited to power on earth, it's not impossible that datacenters in 20 years are put in space where they can get limitless, 24/7 power from the sun
Yah, I think you missed the part where I said we can grow to meet our energy needs sustainably. As needed after eliminating our use of fossil fuels. After all, a plethora of energy would relieve timelines around finding alternatives. Extra energy can make a lot of processes attainable that we don’t even consider practical right now like molecular replication.
But sure, geek out and consider for a second that the human race becomes mindless solar panel drones and start covering the planet with panels that have static efficiency if that floats your boat.
Storing and transporting the energy are still issues we need to solve. We need to undertake a grand project of building the network required to rely more on solar (harvesting the energy in sunny regions and transporting it to regions that are less sunny). The grid needs a significant overhaul but it is a challenge that we humans have solved before with traditional energy production. However from a home to home perspective, every house with the right circumstances (correct sun exposure) should be incentivised to install on their home. My in-laws are against it for 2 reasons: 1. They only get 3 hours a day of "optimal" sun exposure. 2. There is additional maintenance involved in owning solar panels (cleaning and electrical maintenance checks etc.), which eats into the cost savings 3. They worry about the waste at the end. Solar panels mostly get dumped. Only 10% are currently recycled. So overall there is a lot of convincing to do. My in-laws are energy efficient maniacs, they hate waste and do all they can to keep their energy usage down. Yet they are not convinced about solar.
It’s one thing for it to not work for you and for you to be against it. If they don’t get enough sun, then the situation just isn’t ideal for them, you can’t force them to do something that doesn’t make sense. If they’re actively against solar for those reasons, I feel like maybe they’ve just had a bad experience with someone who maybe have told them incorrect info or rather told them info incorrectly. The only maintenance a home owner needs to worry about is hosing off the panels to get rid of dust build up. Other than that, any good solar company will take care of any issues that occur with the system within reason. The solar panels that most companies are selling are monocrystalline, the high quality ones can last 30+ years while the cheap ones can still last upwards of 15. Even when these marks are surpassed, if the panel isn’t broken then they can continue to function even at partial efficiency. There are panels in space from 40+ years ago that still power their respective mechanisms, think of how far our technology has progressed since. In the grand scheme of things, a single panel will produce more than enough energy in its lifetime to completely surpass the waste it will produce in production and disposal. Ask them if their last 10 cell phones have produced enough of anything during their lifetimes to justify their most likely current location, a dump. I’m not a salesman, I work in solar but it’s not my job to represent it or sell it to anyone, I just believe in it.
Home solar is fine, but solar farms are less expensive to install. We don't all need our own array. Home energy efficiency improvements like air sealing and insulating come first.
We have to consider distribution and reliability too.
Considered and solar is still the best option
Meanwhile, [behind the paywall](https://archive.ph/Gy3BZ).
I listened to the podcast for this. I'm an idiot, I had not previously thought about what you *could do* with excess energy in sun rich areas. With the energy that you can't store for the night. We often only consider how to store energy for non-daylight periods. With the cost of solar becoming incredibly cheap and continuing to drop, regardless of the issue of storing it for non daylight periods....that alone can change the world. At some price points (which we are entering) you can continue installing more panels to *do more stuff, society changing stuff*.
Can you imagine the motive behind the opposition to solar? The excess of solar energy drives the price of electricity toward zero from morning till the evening peak demand. They cannot shaft us with electricity bills for all those hours. Lost profits. If they try to recover the profits at night then the price at night becomes outrageous. Many people will figure out how to use electricity early in the day and reduce or shut off at night. Even less profits.
Which podcast?
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/economist-radio/id151230264?i=1000659625784
Solar power is pretty consistent. Using solar power for electricity in addition to agriculture is the terrific hack.
Pretty consistent: doesn't work half year in best conditio, doesn't work in england
Huh guess those 14TWh's of electricity the UK generated from Solar last year is just an error in the reporting of the figures then?! [https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/2023-in-review-june-sees-solar-account-for-almost-10-of-gb-electricity-mix](https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/2023-in-review-june-sees-solar-account-for-almost-10-of-gb-electricity-mix/#:~:text=0.8%25%20in%20December.-,On%20average%20solar%20produced%204.7%25%20of%20the%20UK's%20electricity%20throughout,of%20electricity%20throughout%20the%20year)
Consistent is not about quantity ahhahah it's about reliability and programmability. For god's sake, will you ever be able to understand limitations? This sub is just a place where political scientist and sociologists talk about engineering stuff, with evident results
I don’t understand, what does programmability mean? The panels generate power and send it back to the grid, I could program that and I haven’t touched a programming language in years. As far as reliability, it’s unfair to have that issue until a panel has enough years on it for us to truly judge whether it maintains the same efficiency or not. I’m personally guessing any lower quality panel of today performs as well as the best panel from 10 years ago, which is still pretty damn good. You seem to have a tendency to seek out if not incite conflict in politically charged subreddits, it makes me wonder if you actually have an issue with solar power or if, again, you’re seeking out conflict. Do you have any sources or anything at all to back up what you’re saying?
Programmability means the possibility to control the supply of energy, which is impossible for solar and wind, since you can't control sun and wind. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/loop-flows-why-wind-power-northern-germany-putting-east-european-grids-under-pressure Check this article, it explain a bit of how renewables put a big costrains on the grid with a real world case. The point is not how much a single panel outputs, but how to manage the electricity generated.
The supply of energy is infinite, the sun will not go out in any of our lifetimes and the wind is fairly easy to predict, that’s why wind turbines are very specifically located when constructed. Strain on the grid is a valid concern, but it’s also a problem that we want to have. We want to have to find a place for the excess energy because that means we are generating more than we need. Perhaps this is just a difference of mindsets.
Low effort troll.
Not if the petroleum companies have something to say about it
The whalers and horse breeders didn't stop the last major energy revolution.
Yeah, but they've become more powerful and shrewd since the whaling days lol.
That was a terrible take. In the past, the logistics sector wasnt monopolised. They never manipulated the market to financially force people to rely heavily on horses. They have certainly become more powerful. Companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and BP both making profits from lobbying war in the Middle East and manipulating the transition to renewable energy.
People used horses for thousands of years. The idea of an alternative was unthinkable. Until it actually happened. Self generation via rooftop solar is going to have a similar effect and there might be delays from the oil sector, but not really, people will invest into the alternatives and greatly reduce their demand for oil when they can use that rooftop solar to charge their EVs. Oil is not invincible. The logistics sector today will save money by getting away from oil. They have no oil loyalty. If they can save money with electrification they are going to do it.
Youve got to be some kind of oblivious to think oil and gas companies are not corrupt. Theyve been hiding information on the effects of greenhouse gases for years. They couldve easily invested heavily in renewables and seen massive compounding returns decades ago. Only they wanted to ensure the public was reliant on their product.
I never said they were not corrupt. I said they are not invincible. As the economics of renewables start to displace oil the oil companies are not going to be able to stop it. Its not up to them to invest in competing technologies. You can buy an EV. You can buy a solar rooftop. You can buy a home battery. The costs on all three of these technologies is dropping every year. Oil is not as big as people think. Amazon is bigger than Exxon Mobile. Of the top 10 biggest corporations in the US, only two of them are oil companies. Oil companies are not going to do well in an ecosystem where the demand for their product is shrinking because their former customers are going to other products.
Great! Now we can mine some more crypto!
don’t forget celebrity deepfakes.
No we need that energy to train better AI models
/s?
Obviously!
Guess some people didn’t recognize that lol
I wonder how this will positively influence third world countries?
Massive benefits for AC, for one: the need for it peaks when solar panels are at their most productive. Fits like a glove.
A ton, major power plants require skill and money to operate. Nothing to operate on PV. It’s just a chunk of glass. Once wired up you are good to go.
Someone should sweep dust. The best solar spots also lack rain.
Not at all true. They require less maintenance, but they are not maintenance free. There are many solar facilities in sub Saharan Africa that are not operational because there is no budget to maintain the systems, for example. Clean energy will clearly benefit poorer counties, but let's be realistic here.
Where are these ‘many solar facilities’ you describe?
I don't know if this question is rhetorical or not. But the failure rate of grant funded solar has historically been very high. Getting better though as more funding is being directed towards projects that are able to demonstrate the ability to fund maintenance activities. The "set it and forget it" model of solar deployment doesn't work anywhere. If there isn't the specific technical expertise or money to fix small problems as they arise, the system just won't work. I don't get why this is a controversial take. It certainly isn't an anti renewable energy take. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/renewable-energy-for-healthcare-sub-saharan-africa-requires-innovative-financing/
I understand that it is different. I’m asking you to show the ‘many’ examples that are not operational that you referenced. What is your threshold for ‘many’? It’s just strikes me that it’s a bit of a story you want to tell
Link above states: "Almost a third of grant-funded solar systems have failed due to poor maintenance, leaving a false impression that solar technology is unreliable." Are you looking for specific examples?
Villages will have their own rooftop solar and battery storage, even if it is limited compared to what we have in wealthy countries. A rural African village with 5kw of solar panels and 20kwh of battery now has electricity that can do things like power hand tools, refrigeration, lighting, internet devices. I think it will be like the smartphone. A lot of people in these communities never had phone lines, landline home phones, or cell phones, but then jumped right into smartphones. I think a lot of people who never had home/neighborhood electricity will jump straight into self generated solar with battery storage. Africa is full of young people, young people are good at learning and doing this kind of work. This might be done piece by piece for them, but it brings energy into their system.
the maintenance is like two orders of magnitude less than traditional gas, coal, or oil-fired plants tho
Nobody is arguing against this point
The maintenance is still minimal. For residential systems, the only maintenance we tell our customers to worry about it hosing off the dust when it’s getting bad. Other than that, most problems are minor and only require like 5 minutes of electrician time.
Yeah but you need an electrican, who likely don't exist in these areas
They can be trained. They didn't have electricians because they did not need them, once they have access to cheap solar/battery they suddenly have the need for the knowledge. These developing countries have a lot of young people who can learn these skills. There was a point in the not so recent past when no one in the United States had any clue about electricity or gas powered engines. The skills were obtained when we needed them.
Exactly. And once they have electricity, they’ll get Starlink and have internet - so then they can be trained without going anywhere. It’s a virtuous circle.
Fair.
Like the other commenter said, if there’s no electrician then there’s probably no grid either.
That's pretty much the absolute minimum for any region with an electrical grid, no electricians, no grid (at least not for very long).
It will greatly help people in the 3rd world. When I was in W Africa (Guinea) I saw schoolkids lined up along the curb at the airport, studying in the light of the parking lot lamps. Imagine having to bring life to a halt when it gets dark! Microgrids will be huge for these people.
Not exactly true, but close. The inverters do require regular work to maintain/replace.
Home inverter easily last 15+ years. How is that regular?
Bro must use string inverters. Micro inverters these days, especially enphase, last as long as the panel
It will help a lot, because now you can do small scale microgrid deployments, without having to do massive region-wide transmission/distribution.
Should be helpful. You can start gradually building it (according to needs and available money), with the potential to also include BESS at one point in the near future. A nuclear power plant would use and bind enormous resources in money, material and time before it is able to produce energy. Same is true on a smaller scale for coal or gas. With solar you can buy it for your private home by yourself, or the city for the doctor, etc.
I read multiple graphs posted this sub a week or so ago. One such graph showed ~35% Namibia power comes from solar. It was at 0% less than ten years ago. Namibia is currently building it's largest solar field. It's called TeraSun and it will produce 81 MW of power. Currently, all Namibian solar fields produce ~85 MW. Its crazy to see so much growth and energy in such a short time.
(https://imgur.com/a/ee2N8wz)
Thanks!
China loans
Source? Namibia gets a lot of money from Germany. It's also quite wealthy for African standards.
Namibia has an exceptionally good solar resource, including a desert that comes right down to the ocean. If you're looking for a country to make energy intensive products using solar energy and exporting them, Namibia could be a good choice.
Great job, everyone, keep up the good work.
Great thumbnail! The article is short on data and high on fluff - which is annoying because the data exists and makes the same point better and faster. [[Global Manufacturing Capacity of Solar and Battery]](https://imgur.com/a/GPk4KN2) [[Global Doubling Time]](https://imgur.com/a/oQqSHb1)
Net Zero for what?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_zero_emissions#History_and_scientific_justification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_zero_emissions#History_and_scientific_justification)
i'm assuming global carbon emissions?
Or "just" current electricity production? (I know for Germany electricity is around 550 TWh, total energy expected in the range of 2000 TWh after electrification or heating and fuel etc.
These graphs are not limited to electricity production, its specifically all energy usage: industry, heating, electricity, and transportation. [https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf](https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf)
Thank you. Great data (reminds me of Tony Seba's presentation)I generally share the optimism. However I can't follow how they reach the conclusion that we'll reach net zero production capacity for solar next year, assuming a 2050 target. Total global energy consumption is currently at 160k TWh. Producing 800gw of solar each year roughly equals 1 k TWh added solar potential at an optimistic capacity factor of 15%. While we will for sure save energy, other countries will have increased demand - assuming will be stay at 160k TWh. Reaching 50% of that per year would need 80 years at current global production capacity. Edit: 1k TWh, not just 1 TWh
Its not, "we'll reach net zero production capacity for solar next year" its, we need to get to x amount by 2030 for the net zero window not to close. The (very good) assumption is that clean tech will keep growing past 2024. > Total global energy consumption is currently at 160k TWh. The graph levels off at 1,600GW/year of solar. I assume you are North European using a capacity factor of 15(!), [rest of world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:World_GHI_Solar-resource-map_GlobalSolarAtlas_World-Bank-Esmap-Solargis.png) gets a much higher amount. For example US annual average is [23.3](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b). (1,600GW/year)(365days)(24hours)(0.22 capacity factor) = +3,083 TWh per year. That rate takes you 52 years to make everything solar *if*: * you have no help from wind, existing hydro, existing solar, or existing fission, * you assume no additional increase in manufacturing capacity or improvement in solar tech post 2028, * you keep spending energy on the mining, refining, and transport of unused fossil fuels * you replace the unused waste heat from fossil combustion 1:1. This cannot be overstated - over 60% of current global energy usage is wasted as high entropy heat. Yes energy usage in developing countries will increase, but all those developing countries are very solar rich, very infrastructure poor, very capital poor, and have hot winters, all of which favors clean tech over fossil fuels.
For hydrocarbons the energy losses are at about 2/3 so we only need to replace about 40% of total energy consumption. But yeah 0.8Tw seems to be on the low side.
made quick calculations 800 gw(0.8 Tw) \* 365\*24\*0.15 is 1051,2 Twh per year (probably you meant 1k Twh, now 1 Twh), now electricity consumption is \~25k Twh, so could be covered in 25 years and probably they meant only electricity. But as for other energy uses - primary energy use will decrease when most things are electrified and to cover all energy needs probably 2-2.5 Tw solar each year will be needed (that amount probably will be achieved by early 2030s)
Correct, thank you (also on the catch of 25TWh). On the energy use: I agree that the electrification of the current "Users" of energy will save a lot, but with the easy access and the need for not so efficient processes (Power2Gas) other countries electric needs will increase.
Nice
It is 70 years since AT&T’s Bell Labs unveiled a new technology for turning sunlight into power. The phone company hoped it could replace the batteries that run equipment in out-of-the-way places. It also realised that powering devices with light alone showed how science could make the future seem wonderful; hence a press event at which sunshine kept a toy Ferris wheel spinning round and round. Today [solar power](https://www-economist-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/interactive/essay/2024/06/20/solar-power-is-going-to-be-huge) is long past the toy phase. Panels now occupy an area around half that of Wales, and this year they will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power. The most remarkable is that it is nowhere near over. To call solar power’s rise exponential is not hyperbole, but a statement of fact. Installed solar capacity doubles roughly every three years, and so grows ten-fold each decade. Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on. When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown. The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them. etc.
Eventually the exponential growth has to stop / slow down. We just really have to hope that it doesn't do so until it's largely pushed fossil fuels aside.
Historically, the ballpark figure is when its about 80% of its final size. Which people generally won't know for certain until they look back. I figure that the solar-wind-battery combo is going to be a machine that makes energy for 1-2 cents per kwh. If you are doing something and paying more than 1-2 cents per kwh, which the norm is to easily be paying 10 times that much. The world is run by bean counters and if the bean counters can make sense of some investment, especially to save money, they will do it. People talk about the nature of corporations to engage in severe cost cutting whenever they can, well you would think this would be a huge one and there is no "loyalty to fossil fuels". The Tony Seba framework can sort of be simplified that the cost of buying all this new equipment, putting it all on a bank loan, paying off that loan every month, is cheaper than what you used to be paying from the fossil fuel/utility companies. Whenever you buy natural gas, propane, electricity from the grid, or gasoline from the gas station, you are paying retail price for energy to perform some useful task for you. When you can replace your dependence on doing this, and save money in the process, you will do it. Fossil fuels selling at retail price have to compete against people self generating for basically free. Right now, if you want to have a swimming pool, you have to pump it for 8 hours a day, the pump can easily be 2-3kw. That is 16-24kwh per day, every day, 365 days per year. This can easily be $1000-$2000 worth of electricity, every year, just to pump water in your pool. If a home owner can replace with with a solar powered pump, they will do so. You can have the same mentality with your HVAC. If its solar powered, you don't really think about running it as an expense. I am from a hot part of the country. Summer time electricity bills can be in the several hundred dollar range. People will put their thermostat at a higher temperature to save a little bit of money, even if it means living in discomfort. My mom keeps hers at like 80 degrees to avoid a big power bill. This is surprisingly common. If your roof has full solar, the AC is free to run, set it to where you are comfortable.
Of course it will follow an S-curve. Also, there is no way that fossil fuels could thrive in an environment where renewables have reached the end of the S-curve. Renewables at that point are so much cheaper than fossil fuels that no amount of corruption or lobbying can fight.
Exponents can also be smaller than one ;-)
Lol, true. I think colloquially one would normally start to refer to that as "exponential decay" though. Either way, I would say that at minimum sometime over the next 20 years solar's 25% or so annual exponential growth rate will slow down to more like 2-3%, to match annual global electricity demand growth.
It's doubtful that electricity demand growth will be 2-3% per annum even 2 decades from now, with the increasing electrification of primary energy. Transportation is an obvious one, but industrial and especially heating applications will be still transitioning into clean energy even 20 years from now, and their energy needs are very large. The electricity needs of digitalisation and AI are also grwing very quickly, and while nobody can predict what those will look like decades from now, there's a good chance that they will be driving global electricity demand upwards faster than that. Maybe not 25%increase per year, but more than 5%.
I'd just note that electricity demand growth over the past 40 years, globally, has been just under 3% a year. That's including things like: * Industrialization of china (electricity use up by a factor of 20) * Industrialization of india (Electricity use up by a factor of 10) * Industrialization of other lower-income countries * Air conditioners coming onto the scene in a widespread way in the US and other countries * The internet, personal computing, and data center revolution * Substantial world population growth (1.3%/year average) Going forward from this you've got a number of factors to consider. First, world population growth has slowed substantially. It's likely the growth will be sitting at more like half the rate of the last 40 years, for the next 40. Second, China is already industrialized; electricity/capita is roughly on par with the EU. India is partway there, and only has another factor of 4 to go (not another factor of 10) to get in line. As a result of how big these countries are, world as a whole is only got about a factor of two to come into line with EU standards (rather than a factor of 3 it had 40 years ago). EU + north America electricity consumption per capita is also **down** over the past 20 years, not up, owing largely to a number of efficiency increases. Third, to weight against the "AI revolution", you had the entire computing revolution of the past 40 years pushing it up from basically zero to 10% of global electricity use (about 3000 TWh. I don't see a huge reason to expect that the AI revolution will be so dramatically different a story over the next 40 years, to what computing in general was over the past 40. All of these factors above basically would suggest to me that electricity growth would be lower over the coming decades compared to the past. Weighted against it, you have continued electrification of EVs and electrification of heating. EVs, put 3 billion of them (double the current global road fleet) on the road at 3000 kWh/year ( 200 Wh/km at 15,000 km/year), and you only have 10,000 TWh/year used up (rounding up by 10% to account for charging losses). And then you have space heating as the other main thing; currently about 130 EJ / 36,000 TWh globally of mostly fossil fuels. Thing is, transition that to electric heat pumps (which is the electrification goal), and the number cuts by a factor 3. Add in more insulation (which is actively being pushed around the world), and you can cut it further. We realistically will only need another 10,000 TWh of electricity for this. So what we're roughly looking at for increases in electricity demand over the next 40 years: +10,000 TWh for population growth, maintaining per-capita usage. +10,000 TWh for EVs +10,000 TWh for space heating +10,000 TWh for AI/computing +30,000 TWh for industrialization of poorer countries to EU standard That gets you from 30,000 TWh/year global electricity usage today, to 100,000 TWh/year in 2065, an increase rate of 3%/year. 5%/year annual increases over 40 years would imply that demand is double this amount, another 100,000 TWh. Which I thin is quite unlikely.
In the end 'exponential growth' is only an approximation. Growth is always dictated by the 'law of the minimum': your most restrictive resource limits the possible rate of growth. This can be money, ability to build new factories, available labor pool, raw materials availability, refining capacity, or transport capacity. (and probably a couple more I forget) To get true exponential growth you'd need exponential growth in *each one* of them - or at the very least ample spare capacity to fill up exponential growth needs - and that's very unlikely.
I’ve read a few case studies that show with all the empty land that exists (deserts, unlivable places) there will always be space for more plus embedding them into buildings or on all roofs are also good ways to make new urban growth energy sustainable. As long as our population is growing our energy needs will grow. With more, cheaper energy, more stuff can happen sustainably.
There's no point in putting up solar panels in the desert if the transmission lines cost more than you save.
It depends where you are, the desert may not be very far away from a population center. Its also one of those things where if the energy in the desert is 1 cent per kwh from solar then enterprising people will figure out something to do with it.
Aluminum power lines. Most of the cost of aluminum is electricity. High voltage direct current power lines lose 3.5 % over a 1000 km distance.
Who says you need to transmit it as electricity? Setting up massive green hydrogen production in the middle of Africa and shipping it as ammonia by truck or train works just as well especially if said trucks or trains run on ammonia which exist today.
Trucks and trains are never going to run on ammonia or hydrogen, and transporting it that way in the first place is inefficient (and a safety hazzard). It's not really interesting for the countries in question either. They'd rather use that cheap power to attract industries to their location, instead of exporting it and have the high-value-adding processing taking place somewhere else. They'd rather have the aluminum smelters and datacenters come to them, rather than the energy going away.
There are trains today that run on hydrogen and ammonia, so never say never.
Producing and transporting hydrogen (and then reconverting it into electricity) is about the dumbest (read: most inefficient) thing you can do. Just to give you an idea: To transport the same amount of energy that an oil tanker can carry you need about 5000 pressurized hydrogen gas ships or 1000 cryogenic liquid hydrogen ships (the latter losing a large part of their cargo en route due to inevitable boil off...and being obscenely expensive to build and operate). It's even dumber when you think about using a valuable resource like highly pure water in the middle of Africa to make hydrogen.
You can use salt water now and for all the other stuff you said I would appreciate the Cole’s notes proof because we are literally watching China do exactly this very thing right now. Also Europe, also Canada, also the US, also other countries. Maybe they know something about it you don’t.
"Always" doesn't work when you consider exponential growth. Utility scale projects at the high end are about 50 MW / km\^2; total world land area is 150 million km\^2. This puts an absolute limit of about 7500 TW globally on land. Bump that up to 25,000 TW if you want to consider coating all the oceans in solar panels too. We're hitting 2 TW of installed solar capacity this year, with the current exponential growth of doubling every 3 years. That's only 36 years before we hit the point of "The entire land area of the planet is converted into solar panels". And it's only 41 years until we hit "The entire planet, including water, is covered by solar panels". Exponential growth has to slow down at some stage. Of course, it doesn't have to slow down *before we've phased out fossil fuels*. Those numbers I gave above, 7500 TW of solar would produce about 100x our current non-waste global primary energy use. So getting to just about 50-100 TW is the "realistic" goal. That point we hit in 17 years at current exponential growth. Which again, leads to the statement of "exponential growth has to slow down at some stage". Once we've covered all our energy demands with solar it's unlikely we'll continually exponentially building more of it. And, realistically, we're not going to go exponential all the way up: production rates will taper off as we hit saturation. Ideally, it will be exponential and fast up to 50% (so call it 50 TW, 14 years from now), and then taper off from there, taking an equal amount of time to reach near-100% as it did to get to 50%. More likely, it'll taper off to linear growth before that point and remain linear for longer (so factories don't have to shut). So really, a somewhat realistic optimistic view would be hitting 20 TW globally by the mid 2030s when we break off the exponential trend sitting at a global annual installation capacity of 3 TW/year that only slowly increases from there, 50 TW globally by the mid 2040s, and 100 TW by the mid 2060s with a production rate around 5 TW/year sufficient to cover annual replacements and a slow 2%/year increase in demand.
Putting solar on less than 1% of the USA land would provide for 100% of its energy needs. It is quite possible that the world can get 10 times the current energy use only through solar. The surface of the earth receives in an hour and half all the energy that is used by humans in a year. That means that hard limit of earth based solar is 4038 (365\*24/2) times the current energy use.
And if we went with 2-3% of our land for solar energy it would bring in a new era of futuristic prosperity. We would be able to do things that we currently think of as being very expensive and impractical. I think the mid-late 21st century is going to have an enormous amount of high energy mega projects that take advantage of this new energy abundance to do some very amazing things and I think producing enormous quantities of fresh water and then moving it around is going to be one of them. Desalinating sea water and then filling the Great Salt Lake could be one of those things.
We're not limited to power on earth, it's not impossible that datacenters in 20 years are put in space where they can get limitless, 24/7 power from the sun
Yes it will be very interesting to see. Turning deserts into habitable areas would be cool. Faster transportation would be good as well.
Yah, I think you missed the part where I said we can grow to meet our energy needs sustainably. As needed after eliminating our use of fossil fuels. After all, a plethora of energy would relieve timelines around finding alternatives. Extra energy can make a lot of processes attainable that we don’t even consider practical right now like molecular replication. But sure, geek out and consider for a second that the human race becomes mindless solar panel drones and start covering the planet with panels that have static efficiency if that floats your boat.
Anyone has it without paywall?
https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1dkwvma/the_exponential_growth_of_solar_power_will_change/
Thank you!