I found this podcast with Jesse Jenkins to be a really helpful start to understand non fixed energy resources.<p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-the-sun-isnt-always-shining/id1548554104?i=1000633373832" rel="nofollow">https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-the-sun-isnt-alwa...</a><p>I thought that the most cost effective way to supply energy would require a certain amount of base load. It seems like this is a misunderstanding because of how much cheaper and more available these non fixed resources are than fixed resources. Energy this cheap gives us a huge incentive to change our energy use patterns to match power abundance rather than to take energy demand as a constant.
The EIA (and the IEA) have historically underpredicted solar deploys, to a comical level. They need 2-4 years of spot on predictions before they can regain credibility on their projections, IMHO.<p>So I would put these projections as a bare minimum floor on how much solar will get installed. The true number is likely quite a bit higher.
Excellent.<p>Witness the power of the cost learning curve (Wright's Law).<p>Per Jenny Chase, we also need new wind power generation capacity to keep pace. If solar gets too far ahead of wind on the cost learning curve, it'll (further) spoil the financing of wind. Our glorious green energy future requires both wind and solar, in roughly equal measure.<p>This Volts episode is quite good:<p>Checking in on solar power -
A conversation with Bloomberg NEF's Jenny Chase. [2023-11-29]<p><i>"longtime solar industry analyst Jenny Chase, author of Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon, catches us up on the current state of the global solar industry and looks to where it’s going."</i><p><a href="https://www.volts.wtf/p/checking-in-on-solar-power" rel="nofollow">https://www.volts.wtf/p/checking-in-on-solar-power</a>
We really shouldn't have waited this long to start transitioning to clean energy. If 2050 really is the point of no return (somewhere around then, from what I've heard), we'll have to replace over a century of infrastructure in about 20 years. And scaling is the hardest part. (we've already done some scaling, but renewables only account for ~20% of US energy, so we have to 5x that) Then, there's less developed countries, which can't fund subsidies and have unstable governments making it less likely for big infrastructure projects to get started anyways.<p>Not to mention oil-based economies. Many of them are just sticking their heads in the sand pretending oil will hold up their economy forever. This will be disastrous for them, and I'm sure many will lobby to stop clean energy (which will only make things worse for the planet). Only Saudi Arabia is really trying to diversify. As I said, we really should have started sooner so we could get the politics out of the way and we could just be focusing on deployment at scale today.
I love having our energy grid being reliant on a geopolitical rival. I'm sure this won't end in disaster<p>>China makes 80% of global solar panels<p>>controls 95% of overall supply chain for solar<p><a href="https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/energy/china-to-dominate-95-of-solar-panel-supply-chain-83651" rel="nofollow">https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/energy/china-to-dominate...</a>
The real question is will growth of solar push electricity prices down enough that fossil plants get decommissioned early because they are no longer sufficiently profitable?
How hard would it be to include one graph that plots the relative contributions of solar, wind, gas, coal, etc to total energy usage, rather than growth in energy usage?<p>If the growth over the next 2 years is 10% of current total, having it mostly be renewable is nice, but not very meaningful. It is reassuring that coal growth is negative, but what is the total? Negative 2% is very different from negative 20%.
I don't get why solar is so popular.<p>In more northern regions, you get much less light in the winter. You effectively can only generate around one tenth of the energy you can in the summer - this is from experience talking to others who monitor their solar installations.<p>But, you need more energy in the winter. People are in more, using electricity for heat cos it's colder. I'm pointing out that there is a supply/demand reversal. Sure there are sweet spots in spring and autumn, but when you really need energy, you have less.<p>You can mitigate some minor fluctuations with batteries.... Ie you can smoothen things a bit, but you can't really take the summer's excess, to use in the winter.<p>It just seems like a fundamental mismatch, that leaves you exposed, when you need the most amount of support.
Just so we have some numbers:<p>$0.41 per watt utility-scale solar panel cost in 2020 ($0.17-$0.30 by 2030): <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/2030-solar-cost-targets" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/2030-solar-cost-t...</a><p>Cost projections (note the 2019 upswing where market forces and installation costs exceeded solar panel cost): <a href="https://www.solar.com/learn/solar-panel-cost/" rel="nofollow">https://www.solar.com/learn/solar-panel-cost/</a><p>$480/kWh utility-scale battery cost (falling by 32% to $326/kwH by 2030): <a href="https://www.energy-storage.news/li-ion-bess-costs-could-fall-47-by-2030-nrel-says-in-long-term-forecast-update/" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy-storage.news/li-ion-bess-costs-could-fall...</a><p>Solar energy will likely be stored in low-cost sodium ion residential and high-temperature sodium sulphur utility-scale batteries. This is probably a solved problem in the lab but will take 5-10 years to roll out at scale.<p>To put this in perspective, Bonneville Power in the northwest supplies some of the cheapest electricity in the US due to its installed hydroelectric base. But it is no longer able to compete with renewables, as solar and wind prices have fallen below its $35/MWh wholesale price:<p><a href="https://www.bpa.gov/energy-and-services/rate-and-tariff-proceedings/power-rates" rel="nofollow">https://www.bpa.gov/energy-and-services/rate-and-tariff-proc...</a><p><a href="http://www.bluefish.org/notobase.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.bluefish.org/notobase.htm</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity</a><p>Now the cost-benefit of dams is being examined due to their environmental impact on fish runs (like salmon) and the starvation of wildlife like killer whales near estuaries.<p>Meaning that since solar is scalable, it has made nuclear the most expensive form of electricity today in terms of levelized cost. That doesn't mean that newer thorium and pebble bed reactors aren't worth exploring for high-power use cases, but that there's no way to build, fuel and decommission a nuclear reactor more cheaply than operating an existing dam which is already more expensive than solar.<p>The smart investment today is in energy storage and AC/DC transformers. Photovoltaics are second to that because they are a saturated market, but there could be opportunities in thinner and disposable panels, especially for electric vehicles.
Welcome to the future. <a href="https://media.sciencephoto.com/c0/47/01/29/c0470129-800px-wm.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://media.sciencephoto.com/c0/47/01/29/c0470129-800px-wm...</a>
solar is 10x cheaper than nuclear generation, but storage is 100x more expensive than nuclear.<p>Need a massive change in our understanding of storage costs to go 100% renewable.
This makes me sad, as it means the industrialization of non-urban lands that will get covered with panels. Croplands. Wild lands. If subsidies were only provided for panels that cover existing urban hardscapes, it would be much better.