Solar power expected to dominate electricity generation by 2050—even without more ambitious climate policies::In pursuit of the ambitious goal of reaching net-zero emissions, nations worldwide must expand their use of clean energy sources. In the case of solar energy, this change may already be upon us.
Its not directly in the article but the primary reason Solar is its a lot cheaper than electricity production from fuel, something like 1/4 - 1/10 the price depending on where in the world you are. An energy company is basically foolish to invest in oil based electricity production when Solar is so competitive and cheap and easy to maintain. Wind is a little cheaper where there is good airflow but the maintenance cost is higher especially for offshore. Both however are so much cheaper than Nuclear and especially than oil/drilling fuels that its hard to see much real investment in those older technologies.
There has been a lot of recent complaints around the UK’s granting of further drilling rights in the North sea for Oil. I think the companies taking those up haven’t yet come to terms with the fact there is a good chance those ventures drive their companies to bankruptcy because they wont be competitive as EVs and Solar/Wind take over due to cost savings.
The cost of solar and wind is becoming so attractive, it’s hard to see why anyone would do otherwise.
The elephant in the room (at least for the US; I’m not as familiar with UK policies) are the subsidies. It sparks new investments because many of the incentives are specifically related to new projects. Other ones mess with the valuation of the equipment, making long term tax burden much lower. It’s not the only energy industry to receive subsidies. But it’s pretty asinine to continue to support the one that’s destroying our world.
“In one case, it’s going to profit, amplifying the incumbent status of the oil and gas industry. In another, under more aggressive decarbonization policy and low oil and gas prices, it’s actively working against the climate goal by spurring additional production.”
UK we do a reverse subsidiary system, the most expensive method of production sets the per unit price for all methods. So we effectively apply tariffs to the consumer for renewables as they are usually our cheapest method of producing energy. Yes its as fucking stupid as it sounds, and yes it is on purpose that we have yet to address this.
It kind of makes sense at the start as it incentivized companies to invest in renewables and it was much more expensive to produce back then, but now it has become a lot cheaper for renewables it should be urgently fixed as we still have excessively high energy pricing. However we have a Prime Minster who thinks being anti green means votes so we get the opposite.
Thanks for sharing that info. Definitely sounds like it might have been a good idea in the past but now overdo for a change. Sad that the current PM wants to continue destruction to get votes.
Seems like a good example of how policies need to be implemented with a forward-thinking mentality. Can’t rely on future changes.
And these numbers don’t even take into account the question of what will happen to fossil fuel companies if society / states start to make them accountable for even a tiny fraction of the environmental damage their business model has caused.
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Most of the technologies we benefit from today have been either entirely funded by some government or at least partially funded by them.
There are exceptions, but I mean… I’d argue vaccines and the internet are more important than double-sided tape and a VCR for sure.
I’m glad the article mentioned a number of potential stumbling blocks. Working in the mining sector, I do worry about the ability of metals production to keep pace with demand for all that a solar/wind/EV revolution entails. Metals are certainly the oil of this century though. Our end of the trade show floor has grown so much since I first started in the industry and the oil exploration people are just staring at their feet right now.
I think some people underestimate how much work will need to be done on grids before solar/wind can dominate? The article does mention this also, though without any specifics. Where I live, there is a lot of solar/wind development happening, but it’s more due to the fact that the grid still has some spare capacity left in it than the area being especially well-suited to renewables. In many jurisdictions, they can’t hook up any additional capacity without major work on the grid. You might think that they could still replace existing fossil fuel energy production at least, but it is not as straightforward as you may think to move from a centralized power generation model to something more distributed. This is where nuclear may still hold some advantage, since it is centralized by nature and can fit into the existing infrastructure with less drama.
One thing the article did not mention is the NIMBY backlash problem. In my area, some wind projects were outright cancelled and solar scaled back due to community activism. This drives me nuts, frankly. Where were all these people when coal plants were blackening the skies? But it is what it is. The next phase will be to add grid storage, but even there, there are signs of community blowback.
Working in the mining sector, I do worry about the ability of metals production to keep pace with demand
If mining can’t keep up, recycling will fill in the gaps. We toss a lot of metal into landfill and regularly replace electronics that could easily be repaired. I think we’ll be fine.
I think some people underestimate how much work will need to be done on grids before solar/wind can dominate?
I took a team of three electricians about four hours to install solar on my home. They were done by lunch time and did a second home in the neighbourhood the same day, and that included connecting the panels to the grid — most of the power we produce is sold to the grid. It didn’t cost much either - the four hours labour was about a third of the cost to give you some idea.
It’s a relatively small system, but even on an overcast day they produce more power than we use even under peak load situations. On a sunny day it produces more power than we use in a week.
Obviously we’re still drawing power from the grid overnight… but I was happy to learn (after seeing the metrics produced by our new solar system) that we don’t use much power overnight and could easily use less - it’s mostly just our kitchen fridge which is close to end of life anyway and we will be replacing it with a more efficient one.
Overnight grid power can easily be covered by wind/hydro. NIMBY is definitely a struggle there, but it can be managed. And nuclear is even worse - nobody wants to live near a nuclear power plant. Nobody even wants to live near a road that is occasionally used to transport radioactive materials.
But the real deathblow for nuclear power is it takes an average 7.5 years to build a nuclear power plant. That doesn’t compare favourably at all to 4 hours for an adequately sized solar system and anyone building a nuclear power plant runs the risk that by the time they start operations, they might find nobody wants to buy the power they’re producing. In seven years time there’s a pretty good chance I will have added a battery to my solar system and we’ll only be drawing power from the grid if there’s something wrong with our own power system. There’s no way I’d get behind investing billions of dollars in a nuclear power plant - there’s just too much risk.
A huge portion of our overnight power consumption right now is big industry consumers that operate at night because baseload power is really cheap at night. That demand won’t last - as more and more solar is installed those operations are transitioning to daytime operations. It’s already started, aluminium for example is now about a hundred dollars per ton cheaper to produce with solar than with fossil fuels. Which means the entire industry needs to switch over, and fast, or else they won’t be able to find anyone who will buy what they’re producing.
Look into a Tesla powerwall. Not only does it give you a battery for overnight usage, but I don’t even know when there’s a blackout anymore, cause the power wall automatically takes us off the grid when the grid is down. If you’re connected directly to the grid, your panels have to shut off when there is a blackout so they don’t fry the techs working on the needed repairs.
This makes me wonder if we’ll see a return to homes having DC for power instead of AC just to skip transforming DC to AC for homes that go totally off grid.
I can see in the future a standard for DC power with a completely different power socket that saves up the round trip of DC to AC then back into DC for all our electronics. There are fairly substantial benefits to be had but as I think it through the usable DC is 3 to 12V and appreciable load will mean those cables will push a lot of amps. Not sure the economics will work out without it being high voltage and that fits nothing DC today. If it’s high voltage then everything needs a converter again.
Setting a DC standard today will be a world wide nightmare, we need it but it’s got to be dumb for longevities sake. It’s far off I think.
PoE is 48V. That’s high enough to avoid too many losses over wiring distance, but also low enough that it doesn’t have to be installed by a licensed electrician.
Not for the reason you’re thinking. DCDC conversion has gotten more efficient, but the problem is that nothing wants a specific voltage. Your LED strip might want 12 or 24 or 48V. Your phone wants 5V. Your single board computer might want 3.3V. Meanwhile, what’s flying out of your solar panel array might be over 300V (depending on how they’re wired together). You end up with layers of conversions that each take an efficiency hit. Add it all up, and it’s better to convert the solar output to AC and then convert once to DC at the point of use. Which is exactly what we’re doing.
Plus, items with larger draw, like a clothes dryer or electric stove, are going to want AC, anyway.
However, there’s another thing that might make DC lines viable in houses. Power over Ethernet equipment has gotten relatively cheap. The base power levels are easily enough to run lights or charge a phone, and the more powerful versions can handle a laptop. What makes it especially interesting is that you don’t need a licensed electrician to run it. You can’t be a complete imbecile installing it, but don’t need a license, either. That could dramatically reduce install costs in new homes. You need a proper electrician to install the breaker box and run a few high draw lines, but skip the rest.
As a bonus, any smart controlled devices no longer need wifi or zigbee or bluetooth or anything. They’re already connected to the network by being plugged in.
PoE has been mostly an enterprise thing, but mass production for residential use should further bring prices down.
What about all the appliances expecting AC input?
There would still be a need to convert DC to AC, both for that reason and for export to the grid, but the first thing a lot of appliances do is internally convert to DC anywhere. If it became the norm for homes to have a distributed DC supply, there could well be a cottage industry in replacing the PSU component springs up.
There was a time early in the electrification of America with Edison, he pushed for DC over AC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents
The last DC utility turned off in 2007. http://www.jaygarmon.net/2010/11/in-what-year-did-last-of-new-yorks-dc.html
As far as answering your question, you can run a transformer, but new construction and new appliances will likely be built with DC service in mind.
Most things with a motor would prefer AC. Alternatively, they use DC, but it’s a brushless motor with more complicated electronics and are more expensive for it. This would apply to anything with a heat pump, which includes air conditioning and hybrid water heaters.
Things that run electric resistive heating is fine with either AC or DC, but it has to be higher voltage. The benefits of DC disappear because nothing wants to run at the same voltage.
Imagine trying to explain to some being from another universe that humanity is literally covered for the entire half of each day with around 1000 Watts per meter squared of energy - for free, with no resource to be consumed, that is already the source of energy for all biological processes, that can be used without waste products…
And yet we chose to spend a century digging for a crude mixture of toxic oils, requiring a lot of time and money to separate and refine, to then create waste products that fuck up our lungs and excess CO2 that is driving a mass extinction event due to global warming.
This was to be expected- if you amortize over the lifetime of the equipment, it’s much cheaper to get your electricity from panels than it is to pay someone to burn fuel and give you electricity. This has been true for years and the biggest obstacle for most people doing it has been available financing to do it. It’s better now but in 2013 when I did my system the financing options were terrible compared to, say, purchasing a car. (I also got a car that year and it turns out that auto sellers have in-house banks to facilitate financing, solar rooftop sellers not so much)
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How can it not? If you have a $40k system, you will make enough electricity to avoid paying for electricity at all. You will probably even get a small check from the power company every month. Add up the check and the old utility bill and I bet it beats bank interest on 40k by a mile. Not to mention you are probably eligible for some tax incentives.
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