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

newyorker.com

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

#161

Post by myrmidon »

sfn42 wrote: post #141
myrmidon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem with carbon capture is volume. There is about 0.04% CO2 in air. So in order to remove a ton of CO2, you would need to process thousands of tons of air, depending on the efficiency of the extraction process. It's just kind of infeasible to pull the entire atmosphere through these plants. The largest one we have is called mammoth, claimed to remove 36000 tons of CO2 per year, meanwhile our emissions are mea…

> How are you so confident that extinction is off the table?

Because even the worst-case scenarios (=> think RCP8.5) are just not enough to get rid of us.

I can totally see populous breadbasket states turning into unliveable deserts, billions of deaths from famines and heatwaves, iconic coastal cities being lost to the sea and a giant loss of biodiversity-- but I simply don't see this eradicating our species.

Humans are too adaptable, and warming is invariably gonna leave too many survivable holdout regions.

I think that an all-out global nuclear war would be much more threatening to humanity, and even that I'm very confident we would survive as species.

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

#162

Post by pshirshov »

jonplackett wrote: post #158

> Instead of relying on scattered deposits of fossil fuel—the control of which has largely defined geopolitics for more than a century—we are moving rapidly toward a reliance on diffuse but ubiquitous sources of supply. The sun and the wind are available everywhere I’m all for solar - but does it really solve the geographical / geopolitical issues of oil, as it’s currently rolling out? China produces pretty much all…

> China produces pretty much all the solar panels

Why didn't other countries build up solar industries? Were busy with fossils? Were too greedy to subsidise?

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

#163

Post by dzonga »

phtrivier wrote: post #147
maxglute wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those "ghost cities" got populated in "just a few years", so much so that wiki had to change Chinese Ghost City entry into "Underoccupied Developements". And what is the scale of PRC "malinvestment", quantify or approximate it. Here's a hint, PRC RE+construction as % of GDP = ~15%, about OECD average. PRC just very good at building and gets much more from it, even if some sits idle first or ultimately gets wa…

It's not "wasted by scribes" in the US - it very much goes into the pockets of the "pharaohs" (aka "corporate boards"), and, through campaigns donations, to the "high and low priests" (aka "politicians"). The fact that it was supposed to be used to cure peasants from malaria or ensure next year's yield of grain is just a detail. Don't bother questioning the pharaohs ! Instead, attend the ceremony for when we turn the…

please write a book. such a simple explanation.

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

#164

Post by jillesvangurp »

audunw wrote: post #125

I would recommend reading or watching what Tony Seba has put out. He has correctly predicted where we ended up with solar, and his predictions for the next stage of the energy transition is very remarkable and uplifting. It seems overly optimistic at first but makes a lot of sense when you look at the trend lines.

I think the raw economics behind the transition are very interesting. People have a hard time imagining transformative changes. They keep trying to project the current state of affairs onto the post transition state. Of course the current state is mostly the result of how things used to work and not really a predictor for the future. When things stop working in the same way, a lot of other things start shifting. For example steel production is happening close to where coal used to be produced. And a lot of other industries depend on steel. What happens if steel production transitions to renewables? It will move to wherever renewables are cheapest. Which typically isn't where it's currently happening. Everything depending on cheap steel might move as well.

I think the current US policies are unfortunate (for the US) but ultimately futile. They'll fall behind and will see their exports affected. That will lead to local economic problems that ultimately will lead to economic reform to fix that. It will delay the energy transition in the US for a bit (10-20 years, maybe less). The tariffs will curtail imports. Which, ironically means other countries will be less dependent on exporting to it. And also less motivated to import relatively expensive things from the US. So US exports will decline in lockstep with its imports. And the whole tariff volatility just means that countries will start insulating themselves from being dependent on anything coming from the US. And that will extend to all sectors in the US. Agriculture, gas, cars, software services, etc.

The obvious fix to this in a few years will be a hard break with the (recent) past and ending trade wars and pulling the plug on the fossil fuel industry. Which by then won't be competitive anymore. It actually isn't right now but the US chooses to shove that under the carpet with trillions of dollars of government support. And most of that money is being borrowed. Interest and inflation is going to be a key thing to keep an eye on in the next few years. The US is sitting on a big stinky gas fueled debt bubble currently. What happens when that bursts and the gas becomes worthless?

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

#165

Post by throwaway2037 »

fpoling wrote: post #111
myrmidon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If electricity is sufficiently cheap it can be cheaper to capture carbon from the atmosphere for chemical industry than to use oil or coal there.

    > If electricity is sufficiently cheap
It never will be.

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

#166

Post by bokkies »

pzo wrote: post #139

good article I just don't know why author prefer to spell all numbers using words rather than digits. It's very mentally taxing for me to read, e.g: >> of twenty-one thousand respondents in twenty-one countries, found that sixty-eight per cent favored solar energy, “five times more [...] could be just: >> of 21,000 responders in 21 countries, found that 68% favored solar energy, "5x more [...]

Also Cape Town is a city in South Africa..no idea where Capetown is

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

#167

Post by KaiserPro »

coldspoon95 wrote: post #9

[flagged]

This year, so far, all of my panels have produced at least 300kwhr of (usable) power. And thats in london, which isn't the sunniest of places.

Is solar the only solution? no. but for places like spain, france and italy, its a very cheap solution to handle peak aircon load. Thats without any kind of battery load shifting.

But!

Solar is not a replacement for nuclear. but currently its so cheap it means that poorer countries are now able to afford stable micro grids, something not possible before.

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

#168

Post by closewith »

Propelloni wrote: post #153
LetsGetTechnicl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "critical look" is there to take? How about the way that the US gov't subsidizes the oil and gas industry, and is about to restart the coal industry? For some reason gov't investment in industry is only bad when China does it.

Nobody complains about China investing in its private industry, all wealthy nations do that. Everybody complains that China is a dictatorship that a) treats its people like shit, b) exploits these shitty conditions to gain global market advantage with state-owned companies, and c) keeps foreign companies from exploiting it, too. Obviously it is more complex than that, but in a nutshell it's part butt-hurt and part am…

The Government and actions of the United States also does not mesh well classic liberal ideas of freedom and human dignity, so this seems to be a hypocritical complaint.

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

#169

Post by myrmidon »

fpoling wrote: post #111
myrmidon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If electricity is sufficiently cheap it can be cheaper to capture carbon from the atmosphere for chemical industry than to use oil or coal there.

If you actually use captured carbon for something productive like synthetic fuel (where CO2 gets re-emitted) you are kinda ruining the point though.

Thats what makes this even less attractive-- those plants are expensive to build and operate and you can't even really use the product in the most obvious ways.

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

#170

Post by happyraul »

pzo wrote: post #139

good article I just don't know why author prefer to spell all numbers using words rather than digits. It's very mentally taxing for me to read, e.g: >> of twenty-one thousand respondents in twenty-one countries, found that sixty-eight per cent favored solar energy, “five times more [...] could be just: >> of 21,000 responders in 21 countries, found that 68% favored solar energy, "5x more [...]

That's simply good writing practice. I find it more taxing to read digits than prose.
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