Clean Energy Should Get Cheaper and Grow Even Faster (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0175153065
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/29/0456250/clean-energy-should-get-cheaper-and-grow-even-faster
- Source link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/column-desperate-good-news-climate-100029771.html
> The best-known example is Moore's Law... Like computer chips, many other technologies also get exponentially more affordable, though at different rates. Some of the best examples are renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, lithium batteries and wind turbines. The cost of solar panels has dropped an average of [2]10% a year , making them about 10,000 times cheaper than they were in 1958, the year of their pioneering use to power the Vanguard 1 satellite. Lithium batteries have cheapened at a comparable pace, and the cost of wind turbines has dropped steadily too, albeit at a slower rate.
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> Not all technologies follow this course, however. Fossil fuels cost roughly what they did a century ago, adjusted for inflation, and nuclear power is no cheaper than it was in 1958. (In fact, partly due to heightened safety concerns, it's somewhat more expensive.)
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> The global deployment of technologies follows another pattern, called an S curve, increasing exponentially at first and then leveling out. Careful analysis of the spread of many technologies, from canals to the internet, makes it possible to predict the pace of technological adoption. When a technology is new, predictions are difficult, but as it develops, they get easier. Applying these ideas to the energy transition indicates that key technologies such as solar, wind, batteries and green-hydrogen-based fuels are likely to grow rapidly, dominating the energy system within the next two decades. And they will continue to get cheaper and cheaper, making energy far more affordable than it has ever been. This will happen in electricity generation first and then in sectors that are harder to decarbonize, including aviation and long-range shipping.
And in addition, "The future savings more than offset present investments to the extent that the transition would make sense from a purely economic standpoint even if we weren't worried about climate change.
"The sooner we make investments and adopt policies that enable the transition, the sooner we will realize the long-term savings."
[1] https://www.news.yahoo.com/column-desperate-good-news-climate-100029771.html
[2] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X
Solar and Wind are Additional Costs (Score:4, Insightful)
Because solar and wind cannot be relied upon, unless you are content to sit in the dark during windless evenings you still need the back-up of "conventional" power stations or massive arrays of batteries, with their capital and running costs. In other words, these renewables are an additional capital cost. Their advocates usually overlook this.
Re: (Score:2)
> you still need the back-up of "conventional" power stations or massive arrays of batteries...Their advocates usually overlook this.
That problem is already solved, because an electric car's battery can [1]power [wikipedia.org] a home for [2]days. [environmentamerica.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-everything
[2] https://environmentamerica.org/texas/resources/can-i-power-my-house-with-an-electric-car/
Solar is getting cheaper (Score:2)
It is not that this is news, we know that for quite some time now.
The solar bet was succesful. Hermann Scheer would have loved that.
My colleagues are now heating their pool to 95 Fahrenheit with their solar cells because of surplus energy.
Re: (Score:2)
> My colleagues are now heating their pool to 95 Fahrenheit with their solar cells because of surplus energy.
A friend in California invited me to his home with his enjoyable pool. It is a simple rectangular shape so it is easy to cover in a large plastic bubble wrap layer that is easy to roll up when not in use.
That plastic cover is all he uses and his pool is quite warm and relaxing, like a giant warm bathtub.
quick 'n [1]dirty google [amazon.com]:
[1] https://www.amazon.com/TONTAIN-16mil400%CE%BCm-Quadruple-AboveGround-Bubble-Side/dp/B0CNPDVHW9/ref=sr_1_5?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.LK4pyHP4AwdFdThwZ4FaQ8KkCThrkO8wji0VC5BH7xvyzLx8Vs5y9czzeU2IItoMi5tCeslDlgXSu7j2ItRDbel_8BuQn3y6vnVUkPhwCDVU6fsjVnLlGyREE2h40QG7E6jkv8jyDM4wpRXp7MhRzJrirprTDb-YVKR8lC8TWXmS84bAijujlWEeNKwPi2mFs4vYCyl7kBURcbj24P-cbLLliCM0JvoFeMh-AyebAfE.z3-zyDAP1XHA1rbLFmaXaesxRNK2xbeNFFcA6rdJPd8&dib_tag=se&keywords=pool%2Bbubble%2Bcover&qid=1727623698&sr=8-5&th=1
Re: (Score:2)
I tried that, but sunlight degrades the plastic and bits of it clog your filter pretty quickly. And you have to replace it every couple of years.
I'd rather have the pool a bit cooler and use liquid cover to reduce evaporative heat losses.
what about the storage? (Score:1)
Sustainable generation is only half the story. To have parity with fossil fuel or nuclear fuel generated energy, there will also have to be cost-effective high capacity quickly recoverable energy storage, because that's what the fuels in fossil/nuclear fuel energy also provide. Stored energy, on tap / provided at will, and not just by accident like wind (if it blows) or solar (if it's not cloudy). Adding storage of energy into any equation drastically changes what makes the most sense.
Re: (Score:2)
When I learned that you can buy batteries that store more than 1000kWh over their lifetime and cost less than $200, it calmed me the fuck down. That was "cheap enough" to not worry about the feasibility of electric everything. And still, it's getting cheaper at a breathtaking rate, both by increasing longevity and lower unit price. It is getting ridiculously obvious that electricity is taking over from fossil fuels, and that most of that electricity is going to be from renewable source, not nuclear. At this
Fuels are a commodity, not a technology. (Score:3)
> "Not all technologies follow this course, however. Fossil fuels cost roughly what they did a century ago, adjusted for inflation, and nuclear power is no cheaper than it was in 1958."
The equilibrium price of a finite resource (like fossil fuels or fissile materials) is determined purely by supply and demand, but technology is not finite: You cannot "run out" of knowing about the wheel, or "corner the market" on the equations that describe how electronics work. At most you can manipulate inputs into specific applications of the technology, but you take the risk that buyers will find substitutes for what you sell or, pushed far enough, evolve a different application that cuts you out altogether.
Solar is a technology. Although you have to input a number of things to create the physical hardware, that's fixed cost - it's non-recurring over the lifetime of the product, unlike a fuel. And unlike a technology designed to use fuels, the options to get around resource bottlenecks are numerous. So the price of solar power can decline asymptotically over the long-term (and sometimes even short-term), with only the laws of thermodynamics as a hard stop.
You cannot run out of sunlight, will not run out of silicon, hopefully won't forget how to use semiconductors, and most of the rarer things aren't actually rare...and even amid short-term bottlenecks, they can be balanced against each other as prices fluctuate. Not really possible with FFs or nuclear inputs: They are each their own very brittle ecosystems.
Re: (Score:2)
> You cannot run out of sunlight
Nitpick: You can run out of area to collect sunlight. Rooftops are great, but the taller the building the more volume you're trying to supply with the same area. If you want that sunlight for farmland, you can't cover the fields with solar panels.
You also tend to run out of solar power nightly (which can be mitigated with power storage, for which there are many constantly growing and improving options), and away from the equator you run low (or out, if you're far enough)
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The equilibrium price of a finite resource (like fossil fuels or fissile materials) is determined purely by supply and demand
Supply and demand certainly matter, but the price cannot drop below the cost to extract and process the fuel over the long term. And that is determined by among other things technology.