The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com
> Half the world’s population suffers from hydrocarbon scarcity. Oil is the antidote to poverty. Synthetic fuels are the only way to increase oil supply, cut prices, and slash strategic and security supply chain issues. Synthetic fuels are the single biggest lever we have to double global economic growth.
Another way is to massively reduce demand via electrification, which has already started and will only accelerate (as he details in the rest of this article).
It also ruined the experience for me as I was thinking it was nice to have someone talking about "human flourishing" and "cheap energy" that wasn't actually just a shill for fossil fuels trading on outdated ideas of competitive cost of renewables.
Yes he's selling fossil-free fuels which have a place but he's still feeling the need to pitch them as better than direct electrification which they clearly aren't in most cases.
It is disappointing, but understandable, that he feels the need to make methane in general seem more irreplaceable and vital to human happiness than it really is.
And in the end, it only solves cooking. Electrification solves many more problems at once, and notably refrigeration.
Much of the extant Third World is in its Third World-ey condition because of abysmal governance. That is usually accompanied by infestation of power and grid companies by grandnephews of top politicians etc.; those companies handle a lot of money, are highly centralized, and are thus a prime target for graft.
The bizarre story of South African ESKOM and poisoning of the director who was asked to reduce corruption comes to mind. [0]
[0] https://yris.yira.org/interviews/by-not-speaking-out-when-so...
A country with a well-functioning grid is probably already on its way from poverty.
The 3rd world is much better off switching to solar. With an induction hob you can probably get away with 1000 Wh / day. A 200W panel, a 1000Wh battery, a 1500W inverter and a 1500W hob would cost around $500 and last 20 years. It can also keep a cell phone charged or used for refigeration instead or ...
OTOH, a propane burner might cost $20, but then you'll be spending $10/month on propane, and are super vulnerable to being cut off from your source.
But the vast majority of the solar panels are coming from China, which is a great example of human flourishing and cheap energy, powered by fossil fuels. Anyone who cares about cheap power would have been disingenuous to promote solar. The Chinese strategy of building what is actually cheap has outperformed the rest of us by a substantial margin.
The Western strategy for the last few decades of blocking people from using cheap power just means that the next revolution is more likely to be made in China. I agree with Casey that the investment opportunities here are huge, I just wish they weren't mainly in China by policy. There is a good chance they're about to have a nuclear renaissance too given that most of the plants being built right are Chinese.
1) they are stuck in old models of what is needed, baseload etc.
2) the energy sector is a trillion dollar business giving incumbents trillions of reasons to muddy the waters with made up issues (panels need to be replaced after 20 years etc)
But I think the revolution or evolution can't be stopped. Texas of all places is blowing up in solar installations. Money talks louder than ideology or opinions.
Solar, has dethroned fossil fuels as the cheapest and most convenient form of energy. It's already cheaper than anything else and getting even more cheaper. So, the chaotic period we are going through now has a lot of people in denial about this, ignoring the facts around them, and generally unaware about the wave of renewable technology that is heading their way. This stuff went from "oh it's only a fraction of a percent" to "oops, that's actually most of the market" since the start of this century.
Historically, every big improvement in cost and availability of energy has caused a step change in economic growth. And for the last few hundred years, those step changes have been occurring closer and closer together. The article is a bit over the top but the premise that solar energy represents such a step change is spot on. Orders of magnitude cost reductions are very meaningful and we're seeing those happening. And this is not over yet. The article does a pretty good job of outlining how clean energy can displace fossil energy across every economical sector that matters. And not all of it is science fiction.
Mostly, this will be driven by raw economics. As energy becomes cheaper, it unlocks larger parts of our economy to be cleaned up. People will do it because it's cheaper and those that don't adapt are going to be wiped out by their more efficient competitors.
The interesting thing is that because of the exponentials, a lot of this is happening way sooner than some people seem to expect. And before somebody gets pedantic, I'm well aware that they are technically s-curves and that there's an eventual flattening of the curves. But we're quite far away from that and until then it looks and feels exactly like an exponential. Especially when we are still at or before the bit of the curve where it trends sharply upwards and everything changes dramatically.
Raw economics usually win over ideology. There's a group of people that ideologically are weirdly passionate about burning fossil fuel because historically that has worked well. They also don't believe in climate change, and they represent quite a bit of money and power. This group is doomed to be steam rolled by renewables. Because no matter what they believe, the reality of money is changing the world around them. Even in Texas, which has a lot of these people.
How do you know? I'm an optimist and I think this is true, but what makes you certain this is true and we're not gonna hit a wall soon?
I think that's a real possibility, but my view on that is that this will just shoot his own country in the foot. The first one now will later be last - if you hop on the wrong train you'll be going nowhere.
Technically I think the biggest advantage is that it's mostly trivial to install and maintain. There's probably a fair deal of complexity in the technology, but it's all contained in a module, it's plug and play. Beta didn't lose to VHS because it was a lesser format. Worse is better.
This keeps projects on time and budget, it makes people invest further in it, capacity grows and the prices keep plummeting. This attracts more people into it, rinse repeat. It causes investments to grow in complementary technology and we are seeing that now with batteries and other forms of storage. There is already now a growing panel recycling industry, etc.
Take a look at outside of developed countries and you will see the rest of the world is still far behind, so there's still a huge untapped market. People follow what other people do. There are other factors too (battery prices going down, electrification etc).
Specifically, I'm expecting within the next 2 decades or so
- further reductions in cost of solar energy generation. It's already cheap but another few cost halvings won't hurt. I'm thinking 0.001 dollar per kwh cost levels. About 1 order of magnitude less than today.
- increases in battery capacities over time from ~0.5kw/kg now to at least 2-3kw/kg enabling lots of new use cases (e.g. short haul flight).
- new cheaper battery chemistries and thermal batteries giving us all the energy storage we'll ever need. Battery production is already crossing the 1TWH/year rate right now.
- maybe we'll get some fusion going at some point (a wildcard, I admit). I'm not a big believer in nuclear fairy tales but if somebody at all odds gets micro reactors going at a reasonable cost level, why not (the cost levels are the issue here, 0.001 dollar per kwh is the competition).
Cheap but a lot of folk don't follow through. China accounted for some 50% of the coal capacity under construction in 20 countries last year. China (75%) dominates the solar business but opened more coal power plants last year than at any time in the last seven years. At the same time their solar accounted for only 3.5% total energy consumption.
'It's already cheaper than anything else'. Is this a prediction? If so when will it become a reality because at the moment it's the reverse of the truth for most locations.
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-scrambles-add-coal...
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/chinas-dominance-solar...
As for their coal plants. They have a bit of a debt bubble going on where there are lots of things being built that aren't needed (e.g. massive amounts of apartment blocks). These coal plants might get constructed. But turning them on and supplying them with coal is a different matter. Either way, most analysts seem to think that China's coal usage has already peaked. Peak coal usage for the whole world is in the past. Most US and European coal will be gone within 15-20 years. I don't think China will be that far behind.
India is a bit of an outlier. They have a massive population and rapid economic growth. So they have a big appetite for more power generation. Renewables can't keep up short term. But of course they are perfectly located for solar power generation being as close to the equator as they are.
It's not a question if they'll be using solar but how much GW per year they'll be deploying. I believe on a per year basis that's already outstripping their quite ambitious coal generation plans. They deployed 18GW of solar last year. China doubled it's deployment by a whopping 217GW last year. More than anyone else. India has a bit of catching up to do but it seems they are getting there.
We just don't believe the climate predictions (because they're wrong - no more glaciers by 2020?!).
And we don't believe in climate change solutions promoted by degrowth propagandists: ban plastic straws, ban meat, ban incandescent light bulbs, make all home devices worse (e.g. dishwashers, washing machines) and waste million-years of people's lives, cold showers to save hot water, ban aircon (this is literally the most braindead idea ever, their consumption curve matches solar production curve exactly), etc.
Climate change will be solved like any major problem has been solved in history of mankind: by innovating better and cheaper technology.
The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. We will use the technologies described but when something sounds too good to be true, it is.
But the hype is huge. Hydrogen has much more people working on it in the EU Commission than nuclear despite nuclear being the biggest single electricity source in EU and hydrogen still in the prototype stage.
1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oZ3k6RCf8Y9YLKorogDeEB1Sp8n...
While periods of abundant electricity might seem like a good business opportunity, it turns out it is not easy to efficiently use huge amounts of electricity that come and go according to the weather. Most factories need to have reliable production to be economical.
Large cities in S.E. Asia are absolutely choking on smog, much of produced from shitty motor bikes and rickshaws. A shift to battery powered personal transportation with the batteries powered by local solar panels installed on buildings or walls or anywhere and everywhere they can stuff them can completely eliminate that pollution and completely eliminiate the need to import massive amounts of fuel.
The supply chain for the electricity can literally be like 200ft from the panels on a roof to the stand of motorbikes charging below. Compare that to trucks that have to drive miles to reload gas stations, or the maintenance costs of installing pipe infrastructure to transport it.
We still have long pipeline and centralized infrastructure for producing the panel themselves, with also its own environmental impact. I don't mean to lower the benefits of solar panel here, and other practical solutions we have under the hand clearly have at least as many negative impacts.
As other stated, we don't have yet a fabulous solution that allows to give every human the opportunity to blow and flourish with an abondance of energy that isn't generating pollution and large scale destruction of biodiversity. However the simple fact that such a goal is distinctively clear and considerable is already a big asset
This is a real problem for solar in some places. But on the other hand two a few other things are (marginally) positives:
These places often have snow which contributes to better energy capture via scattering of light hitting the ground onto the panels.
Lower temperatures can often give better efficiency for the panels.
And most importantly: These places can have 20+ hours of daily sunlight in the summer.
During the summer, Nordics are already at solar capacity with electricity prices often dropping negative.
So basically you are producing electricity when it is already abundant and making nothing from it and not producing anything when it is actually needed.
What are the options for dwellings of various sizes for the unusual situation at extreme north latitudes ?
As for energy storage, for example: I am personally looking at a ground thermal unit which can store heat in the ground during the summer and cool the home at the same time. This stored heat can then be extracted for an increased COP during the cold months thereby reducing energy usage per degree of heating.
There are add-ons such as https://thermia.com/products/accessories/cooling-module/
I expect air conditioning to remedy this. It's already July-in-May here in Hellsinki.
Also, an underrated factor in cost/benefit of renewables (and nuclear) is interest rates and risk, as you borrow money up front and pay it off over decades.
This is a big factor in why Solar is deployed further north than you'd think it should if the earth was being managed by a benelovent dictator.
So as costs decrease solar deployment spreads both north and south.
The other factor is seasonal variability, which is a harder problem to solve than low irradiance. Low irradiance can be solved by installing more panels, which will automatically be solved with future price declines.
Every industrial revolution also happened faster then the previous one. Which is related, but indirectly.
Solar came to the fore at the apex of human industrial productivity (i.e. now, as opposed to any time in the past): so it would be very surprising if it didn't scale up faster then every previous energy source.
Which of course makes sense that it did: China is the largest manufacturing base the world has ever seen, solar panels are made in China, and China is one of the most recent major industrial revolutions.
This is one of those observations that doesn't really mean anything on it's own: any technology today which has an advantage should scale up faster then anything which came before, because we can make more stuff then before and have more wealth then before.
https://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/2016-ERSS-...
The energy intensive production has to be built close to the supply.
https://inews.co.uk/news/business/national-grid-green-upgrad...
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152...
Particularly this piece of news seems toxic to me, as selling energy to other markets is an obvious response.
Power prices going negative is a failure state not "good news" because it implies that active protection of other generators economic viability is being exercised to protect against externalities - i.e. your gas fired peakers can't make any money during the day, but when the solar goes off at night you still need them. Therefore, the gas fired peakers have to be sponsored to continue existing to service the demand at other times.
They don't need sponsoring, if they're needed at night then the nighttime energy prices will reflect the costs including the downtime. Which is then a business opportunity for storage technologies to become feasible.
With the move to electric cars, and the average American family owning 1.88 cars according to the Department of Transportation, we're going to expect the demand on the power grid to roughly triple in the next decade or so. It will quickly become more akin to the area of Connecticut.
Then considering solar panels are only roughly twenty percent efficient, that area becomes closer to the size of Maryland.
Solar just isn't practical in actuality, the energy density is too low. They're promoted by woo peddlers who failed basic math classes.
All this suggests that nuclear power is the better option. The environmental impact and industrial costs of manufacturing, transporting, maintaining and replacing the insanely vast number of solar panels needed to meet our energy demands exceeds the long-term negative impacts associated with nuclear power plants, even considering waste management and potential risks.
What if we covered the roofs and parkings lots of every big box store with solar panels? And residential roofs? There are projects in California to cover canals with panels. The panels also double as cover to minimize water evaporation from the canal.
What if we cover above ground LRT tracks with solar panels?
There's so much space in our urban environments that we can put panels on, and by putting the panels closer to where the energy that they generate is used there are massive savings in distribution infrastructure costs as well as wasted electricity.
Pretty sure the USA easily has the land area for sufficient solar
[1] e.g. https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/the-us-is-cow-country-and-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics
It's very practical for decentralizing, diversification and resiliance
In fact, that any progress has been made at all is testament to the tenacity of researchers who are operating on a fraction of the budget described as "fusion never".
You clearly don't understand the issues facing fusion.