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IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

electrek.co

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Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#51

Post by marcosdumay »

matttttttttttt wrote: post #47
pingou wrote: post #6

"Overall, renewables and nuclear together met nearly 60% of the growth in energy demand". That's not enough. It's obvious this is going in the right direction but adoption is still too slow, considering how cheap renewables are now (and will be).

Read it carefully. The growth in renewables exceeded the growth in electricity demand. The 60% figure is all forms of energy. Stated another way, we could (hypothetically) stop building coal and gas fired electrial generation and we'd still have enough renewable growth to cover electrical needs. There's certainly room to start offsetting non-electrical power usage, but that's a different ball game entirely. I'd be pr…

> The 60% figure is all forms of energy.

It's even better than this appears, because normally a Joule of electrified work replaces 2 to 4 Joules of fossil fuel. And electrification tends to happen on the less efficient processes first.

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#52

Post by quote »

With PV being the absolutely cheapest form to get energy in most regions of the world already or soon-ish (and even highly useful electric energy at that), I fully expect our capital machines to pour ever more resources into its deployment. This will go on until we have plastered some percentage of the earths surface with PV, there's fundamentally no real constraint to doing so.

Along the way, over the next 10-30 years we will have replaced most major fossil burning things - the only way you will be able to compete with PV power is if you're sitting right on top of a gas field in a location with little sunlight and no grid connection.

Incidentally, with ever-falling battery storage costs, I'd assume the need for large interconnect buildout to be diminishing, but there's lots of inertia in that system so societies might end up with some underused assets. Still better than all the stranded assets I suppose, but still.

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#53

Post by [deleted] »

actionfromafar wrote: post #50
dzhiurgis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got source? China only ended solar panel export subsidy this month.

The 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]

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#54

Post by marcosdumay »

meibo wrote: post #3

Maybe "accidentally killing fossil fuels" will be DT's singular good deed

The man is an overachiever.

He is in the process of killing the rise of neonazism, exposing those religious extremists that want constant wars on the Middle East, creating a multipolar world commerce chamber, turning the EU into a federation, popularizing socialism (and even outright communism) in the US, dismantling the US's foreign government overthrowing apparatus, creating actual diplomatic relations between the Eastern Asia governments...

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#55

Post by xorcist »

stavros wrote: post #19
vidarh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mao's campaign to kill sparrows was a result of a belief that they were a net loss for harvests. Stalin's support of Lysenko was a result of thinking Lysenko was actually able to drive agricultural growth. Both mistakes led to mass deaths. We still tend to attribute those deaths to those leaders, because their brutally authoritarian rule was what allowed those mistakes to go unchallenged and get fixed before they cau…

> We still tend to attribute those deaths to those leaders, because their brutally authoritarian rule was what allowed those mistakes to go unchallenged and get fixed before they caused that level of harm. What is the analogue here for attributing the rise of alternative energy sources to Trump? Being too incompetent to avoid harm isn't the same as being too incompetent to avoid benefit, because your job is to create…

> It's Trump's job to create positive outcomes

For whom?

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#56

Post by ilogik »

iso1631 wrote: post #26
decimalenough wrote: post #8

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.

> 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

What about nuclear?

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#57

Post by marcosdumay »

XorNot wrote: post #44
childintime wrote: post #18

> And nuclear is making a comeback: More than 12 GW of new reactors began construction in 2025 By the time they are ready they will have contributed so many carbon emissions, that they'll have to run for 25% of their expected life span to get them back. But by the time they are commissioned (~2036), solar + battery + solar-made hydrocarbons will have made them uneconomic, and solar would have made far fewer emissions…

Solar made hydrocarbons are never going to be economical. Confident predictions of the inevitability of renewable diesel at $3 a liter don't add up because diesel is $3 a liter right now . I am literally paying that at the pump. I will actually happily pay more then that if the diesel were actually renewable, but instead it doesn't exist.

Of course they are. We aren't going to be able to take hydrocarbons out of the ground forever.

You won't burn them in your truck, though. That's an almost certainty. But whatever use they still get when we end transitioning to solar will be met by synthetic hydrocarbons, there's no point on keeping the entire oil production and distribution industries when you can just make a bit of it near the point of use.

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#59

Post by JumpCrisscross »

deaux wrote: post #42
decimalenough wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump's stated goal of regime change in Iran would (likely) have been a positive outcome if it has actually happened. The problem is that it hasn't.

> Trump's stated goal of regime change in Iran would (likely) have been a positive outcome if it has actually happened The number of Americans still believing this is baffling and saya everything about their history education. "The previous 20 times we forced regime change ended up a net negative for the people in those countries, but surely this time it would've been different!".

> previous 20 times we forced regime change ended up a net negative

Plenty of counter-examples, too. WWII. South Korea. Potentially Venezuela, mostly because we constrained our objectives.

I also don’t think it’s fair to constrain OP’s statement to “the people in those countries.” Regional impacts matter, too. An Iran that isn’t funding terrorist proxies everywhere could still be a net positive even if the average Iranian is no better off afterwards. (To be clear, I’m in no way supporting this stupid war.)

Re: IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first

#60

Post by guepe »

ilogik wrote: post #56
iso1631 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

What about nuclear?

Fuel was created by the explosion of supernovae, still solar but not our sun.
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