Solar power has begun to transform the world’s energy system

Post by fpoling » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 5:03 AM UTC

myrmidon wrote: post #71

alex_duf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>whether the growth of renewables outpaces the depletion of our carbon budget I'm not sure I understand. There's no carbon budget, any carbon that we emit is carbon we'll have to re-capture somehow and the longer it stays in the atmosphere the longer it will have a heating effect. I think renewable have accelerated to the point of matching the electricity growth worldwide: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electrici…

I highly doubt that we will have global negative emissions (CO2 capturing) within the next decades-- maybe by the end of the century. Even very rich nations have a handful of prototype plants for CO2 capture right now at best, and the budget for things like this is the first thing that gets slashed by Doge et al. If we were on track for lots of CO2 capture by 2050, we would see the beginnings already (massive investm…

Post by hannob » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 5:19 AM UTC

pydry wrote: post #42

arh5451 wrote: post #24

Nice article explaining solar energy policy. I think the article still doesn't address the mismatch between solar energy production and consumption, which needs to be filled by storage mechanisms. Also would have been nice to have a critical look at how the Chinese were able to corner the Solar market via state sponsored means.

It'll probably be fulfilled in 3 stages 1) Gas peakers - where every kilowatt hour delivered by solar or wind is just a kilowatt hour of gas that would otherwise have been burned. We are generally still here - still burning gas while it's sunny and windy. 2) Pumped storage and batteries gets us to 98% carbon free grids with ~5 hours of storage with 90% roundtrip efficiency - https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per…

Post by aaronbrethorst » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #106

thomascountz wrote: post #102

> ...people are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hours. This is amazing! Whether you believe photovoltaics are the most efficient form of green energy production or not, you cannot argue the impressive economics behind them. Successful engineering has to meet the market at the end of the day.

> are the most efficient form What does this even mean?

Post by dalyons » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 5:29 AM UTC

coldspoon95 wrote: post #47

dgacmu wrote: post #38

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Not entirely. California now handles its peak using solar+storage quite effectively. https://blog.gridstatus.io/caiso-solar-storage-spring-2025/ It's not entirely 1:1. CA has about 20GW of solar production, and the solar+storage together completely replace about 5GW of fossil capacity. (But don't discount wind. Wind+solar combine pretty well, and if you throw that in, you'll see that CA is actually replacing about 10…

Exactly my point. Solar and Wind being intermittent require additional expense of grid storage which other forms of energy do not need. So to scale, for each GW of solar, you’ll need a GW of storage plus the energy reserve to take through the night. Can’t rely on wind here as that’s also intermittent. And grid storage is energy intensive and sets up twisted incentives for those playing to get rich with energy arbitra…

Post by jopsen » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 5:53 AM UTC

jdlshore wrote: post #110

xnx wrote: post #86

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This is very cool. I'm guessing you must live somewhere with mild winters. Insulation can do wonders, but it can be overcast for weeks in the north.

Solar panels are so cheap that it makes sense to overbuild, such that even an overcast winter day meets your electricity needs.