Solar is nowhere near to be a dominant source of energy and will never be.
Why do you think that? Absent some other primary power source like fusion, solar energy is the upstream producer of all the energy we currently use. Using it directly seems like the most obvious answer, especially when replacing e.g. all the earth's energy usage would only take, say, the size of Arizona
Interesting that you mention fusion though considering fission is available today and provides a substantial amount of power (not to mention actually reduces the amount of fossil fuels whereas solar has a negligible impact on fossil fuels and at best is only absorbing energy growth).
I disagree. The tech itself already good enough to supplant the majority of cases, which in turn gives us more time for the things that remain (such as long-haul aircraft).
That said, I may be a little on the optimistic side about how much warming the ecosphere can take. If it's already too hot, then yes, naturally you are correct.
> Interesting that you mention fusion though considering fission is available today and provides a substantial amount of power (not to mention actually reduces the amount of fossil fuels whereas solar has a negligible impact on fossil fuels and at best is only absorbing energy growth).
That's not what the graphs show: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix
• Coal: down since 2012
• Gas: close enough to steady since 2012
• Nuclear: down since early 2000s
• Wind and solar: up
Looks to me like gas mostly replaced oil (since the late 90s); and that wind+solar is displacing nuclear (since the former became big enough to show up on a graph).
The graphs you provided show that coal and usage are still growing in absolute numbers. They're only going down in perentages. So, aside from oil (which is mostly still there), nothing was displaced.
The only significant thing we learn is that we've doubled our electricity usage since 2000. The share of low carbon electricity generation barely moved since 1985. Renewables just helped avoid it crumble due to hydro not being scalable.
EDIT: and those electronics also degrade - a lifespan of 20 years would be reasonable at scale.
You can't run "bare" LiFePO4: you're either forming a grid, or you're connecting to one. Both involve BMSes and inverters.
I'd bet a dollar that, in 50 years time, nearly all energy usage is going to be primitive biofuels or solar-PV-origin.
If building a solar installation is cheaper per kW then building a gas generator, that literally doesn't matter if the only times the solar installation generates power is when power prices are negative.
I also did the analysis for new nuclear under a relaxed regulatory regime (i.e. substantially cheaper and faster than now) and there's no way it wins. For the price of a gigawatt of nuclear, you can get 5 gigawatts of solar that's online next year, plus half a gigawatt of battery.
I could be wrong, I'm just an armchair economist on this stuff, but I just don't see how it makes any economic sense to build anything but solar unless you're located somewhere remote and arctic (i.e. Åland or something)
On top of that the solar plant capacity factor is somewhere between 10% - 30% in most locales, so the sticker plate capacity of 5 GW is going to be under 2.5 GW at best (and that would be a 50% capacity factor).
I've never been able to find a way to square an actual "no fossil fuels grid" with the supposed cheapness of solar or wind - it always feels like people are quoting selectively useful $/GW values and then not giving a full accounting of the assumptions behind them - i.e. GW type quotes originate with thermal powerplants which have capacity factors which are essentially "whatever you want if you pay us".
The LCOE values I've seen place batteries+PV at ~ nuclear… but nuclear is more expensive than almost anything else.
I anticipate further reductions in the price of batteries from the learning curve and demand driven by electric cars where they're already cheap enough to replace ICEs, such that the cost of batteries for electricity time-shifting will be OK fairly soon (as in: 5-10 years)but that's a forecast and not a guarantee.
There's also the possibility of a global power grid — the maths works out just fine, few hundred billion USD and a year or two of global aluminium production, we have to spend more than that on upgrading the last (hundred) miles even if we never build the global interconnects — but basically only China has both the interest and the capabilities to attempt something like that as part of a future belt-and-road initiative, everyone else will definitely not get past the "talking about it" stage.
Nation-states would likely still retain strategic reserves of thermal powerplants, but they wouldn't be run, and the budgeting for them would be under national defense and interpreted through that lens (i.e. you can buy it down with strategic alliances and diplomacy).
> I've never been able to find a way to square an actual "no fossil fuels grid" with the supposed cheapness of solar or wind - it always feels like people are quoting selectively useful $/GW values and then not giving a full accounting of the assumptions behind them - i.e. GW type quotes originate with thermal powerplants which have capacity factors which are essentially "whatever you want if you pay us".
I'm telling you right now that LCoE for replacing natural gas is here. Coal has been dead for a while, new hydroelectric plants have massive siting concerns, wind is already too expensive compared to solar + battery, oil has been dead this entire century for electricity. What else is left? Only marginal things like geothermal which are entirely location-based.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61424#
The grid will be solar. Very soon, in fact. Within 20 years, which is lightning fast in grid terms.
But that's a utility being injected into a grid which already has widespread stored-fuel powerplants. I'm not contesting batteries work under some circumstances, I'm contesting whether they actually work when they are doing more then displacing load-handling at the edge. The grid runs 24/7: there's a massive difference between running batteries for 2 hours, and then recharging because you can buy power any time of the day you want, versus their being near zero dispatchable generation on the grid.
Because a gas generator is more then happy to sell you power and run a little longer to do so at any time of day. If that gas generator doesn't exist though, then once your battery is empty it's empty until the renewables pick back up. And that's the answer I'm still not seeing - the question isn't "can you optimize the grid" the question is "can you eliminate stored-fuel power plants entirely". It's fairly obvious that batteries can help in some circumstances given that gas plants have start up times in the tens of minutes, and power prices going negative is bad for them.
EDIT: Basically, are we actually displacing any fossil fuels off the grid, or just optimizing it's expansion - given that an infrequently used peaker plant can become a frequently used peaker plant quite easily, but a solar farm can't do the same.
A solar panel produces energy. A battery only stores it (and loses, round trip about 8% in the process) - which is to say, batteries are solely arbitrage instruments.
Batteries are extremely functional in many installations, and even if you’re not using, only selling, arbitrage can work well. This is especially true if you get paid to accept the commodity in one time window and can get others to pay you to take it later.
"The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 122 PW·year = 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. In 2002 (2019), this was more energy in one hour (one hour and 25 minutes) than the world used in one year."
2023 is the year we burned the most coal, the most gas, the most oil, etc... So far.
Here’s hoping!
Nuclear is also cheap and doesn't have this limitation.
And for transport we need some kind of storage system regardless (doesn't have to be batteries, but does have to exist), the scale of which is larger than needed to do anything we want with night/clouds/etc. issues with PV.
The factories to make those batteries are being built very quickly.
Why would you store electricity produced by Nuclear energy? You can adjust the production to match the needs.
Depends where you are. If, for example, you're in the most-occupied bits of Canada, your grid connects to the south side of the USA, which gets rather more hours of sun than you do.
> We've yet to see a battery system able to hold enough power to balance these months of under production.
If you're far enough south to get as many as "a couple of hours" of sun each day in midwinter, this isn't a serious issue in most cases. Why? Because adding more PV is much cheaper than adding more batteries — when you've got 2.4 hours of sun, build a 24*n hour battery and enough PV to charge that battery in 2.4 hours, where n is some factor for "in my location, there are often n-day cloudy streaks".
But also, most places already have a decent grid (exceptions exist, Hawaii is excusable, Texas is not), the grids are not fundamentally so lossy as to break the economics here, and much better grids can be made if there's sufficient political will behind it (yes, even one that worked for Hawaii).
If you think I'm being silly, well... I'm not the one using the word "never"
Geothermal is most either primordial gravitational energy from the Earth's formation or energy from decay of uranium and thorium. Only decay of K-40 might be ascribed to fusion.
Tidal is derived from gravitational energy.
This is related to the historical question of the age of the Earth. Before the discovery of fusion, it was thought the Sun was powered by gravity, which put an upper limit on the age of the Sun of some tens of millions of years. This was close to Lord Kelvin's limit on the age of the Earth as modeled as a solid sphere cooling by conduction, which led him to believe both estimates were correct. As it turns out, both estimates were flawed, but for different reasons, and it was only coincidence they were similar.
I don't trust the exponential trends to not be secret sigmoids past that point.
Nobody ever provides an honest answer to those questions.
This isn't a binary versus issue. If you have to ramp up coal burning and natural habitat destruction to produce the needed PV cells then you also need to stop endless-growth profit seeking manufacturing wholesale.
The mining of quartz typically involves several methods depending on the nature and location of the deposit. Here are the common methods used:
- Open Pit Mining: This is the most common method for mining quartz. It involves the removal of large amounts of soil and rock to access the quartz deposits. This method is used when the quartz is found close to the surface. Heavy machinery such as excavators and bulldozers are used to remove the overburden (the soil and rock overlaying the quartz).
- Hard Rock Mining: In cases where quartz is found in veins within rock formations, hard rock mining methods are employed. This involves drilling and blasting to break up the rock and access the quartz veins. The material is then transported to the surface for processing.
- Underground Mining: If the quartz deposits are located deep underground, underground mining techniques are used. Miners create tunnels and shafts to reach the deposits. This method is more labor-intensive and expensive than open pit mining but is necessary for accessing deep deposits.
- Placer Mining: This method is less common for quartz but can be used in riverbeds and stream deposits where quartz particles have been eroded and deposited. It involves washing and sifting through gravel and sediment to extract the quartz.
Open pit mining and hard rock mining can cause significant land disturbance and environmental degradation, including deforestation, habitat destruction, and soil erosion. Proper environmental management practices and reclamation efforts are essential to mitigate these impacts.
We aren't talking about sand.
The production of the current global output of solar cells require from somewhere between 8-10 million metric tons of coal annually.
Totally disingenuous comparison. You don't get to use the existing energy source's coal requirements to criticize the energy usage of the replacement energy source.
"We can't replace coal power! Think how much coal we'll burn building the replacement for coal power!"
Moreover, there's nothing about it that requires particularly pure quartz, since impurities are removed when trichlorosilane is distilled.
Zero.
PV pays back it's own energy cost in a matter of months to single-digit years, even in the worst cases that's still enough to support the current exponential.
And the raw material are not found only in mountains, the main component by mass being — famously — what sand is made from.
Today, coal generates over 60% of the electricity used for global solar PV manufacturing, [...].
This is largely because PV production is concentrated in China – mainly in the provinces of Xinjiang and Jiangsu where coal accounts for more than 75% of the annual power supply and benefits from favourable government tariffs.
Continuous innovation led by China has halved the emissions intensity of solar PV manufacturing since 2011.
This is the result of more efficient use of materials and energy – and greater low-carbon electricity production.
Despite these improvements, absolute carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from solar PV manufacturing have almost quadrupled worldwide since 2011 as production in China has expanded.
Based on manufacturing capacity under construction, China’s share of global polysilicon, ingot and wafer production will soon reach almost 95%.
Today, China’s Xinjiang province accounts for 40% global polysilicon manufacturing. Moreover, one out of every seven panels produced worldwide is manufactured by a single facility.
This level of concentration in any global supply chain would represent a considerable vulnerability; solar PV is no exception.
Solar PV’s demand for critical minerals will increase rapidly in a pathway to net zero emissions.
The production of many key minerals used in PV is highly concentrated, with China playing a dominant role.
Despite improvements in using materials more efficiently, the PV industry’s demand for minerals is set to expand significantly.
In the IEA’s Roadmap to Net Zero Emissions by 2050, for instance, demand for silver for solar PV manufacturing in 2030 could exceed 30% of total global silver production in 2020 – up from about 10% today.
This rapid growth, combined with long lead times for mining projects, increases the risk of supply and demand mismatches, which can lead to cost increases and supply shortages.
That's a choice, not a need.
The need is right by that:
> solar panels only need to operate for 4-8 months to offset their manufacturing emissions.
> We're talking billions of tonnes of raw materials here to meet decadal global demands, and it simply isn't just sand (and remember that really good sand is a resource in demand also):
1) Doing nothing leads to burning around 8 billion tons of coal per year just by itself.
PV, even when made from coal power, reduces that by a factor of 40-90.
And, as you do make and connect it, the fraction of power coming from coal constantly decreases anyway.
2) I said "main component by mass", not "just". My point stands.
3) You don't need "good quality" sand for PV. Crush some rocks if you like, silicates are everywhere.
Who's advocating doing nothing, is that something I said?
2) I said "main component by mass", not "just". My point stands.
You clearly stated "Zero". That's incorrect. The energy demands of mining are not insignificant by any means.
There are large amounts of material being mined, both sand, and silver, and others to support PV
3) You don't need "good quality" sand for PV. Crush some rocks if you like, silicates are everywhere.
You've not ever mined anything or worked in geology, have you?
I mixed you up with the other poster, but your comment and theirs together very much pattern-matches to such a position, yes.
> You clearly stated "Zero". That's incorrect. The energy demands of mining are not insignificant by any means.
I said zero in the context of "how much coal and how many mountain tops are needed".
This remains correct.
Zero mountains need to be levelled, zero coal needs to be used.
And what do you mean by "insignificant"? Your own citation is saying 4-8 months to repay their own energy cost, for devices which last 25-30 years. I think 1.1-2.6% of their lifetime output counts as "insignificant" in proportional terms, even though that's a big number when you multiply 2 TW by 30 years to find out what it takes to scale to the current global electricity demand.
> You've not ever mined anything or worked in geology, have you?
Have you?
Silicon is the second most abundant element in earth's crust after oxygen.
The doping agents are less common, but also you need far less of them.
Again, no mountains need apply — even for the single most important element, the scale needed is a big hill, not even a small mountain.
SiO2 + 2C --> Si + 2 CO
is best done with charcoal, not coal, due to the porous microstructure of charcoal more effectively interacting with silicon monoxide vapor. So not only is coal not needed, it's not even the best feedstock for this process.
That would be bad except:
a) production has increased by more than 10x in the same time period.
b) solar panels added to the energy mix pull down the average carbon and quickly pay back their manufacture
which means it's just a sensible investment in an incredibly low carbon and cheap energy source which has gotten even more incredibly low carbon and cheap over time.
By 2045, the earth will be covered by solar panels so we will start tiling Mars.
According to projections, the Dyson Sphere should be completed by 2117. Exponential curves are a hell of a drug.
> I don't trust the exponential trends to not be secret sigmoids past that point.
The thing is that predicting the cap is as important as predicting the inflection point. 100% solar (or renewables) isn't possible without other technologies which are much less developed, consumer pattern changes which have yet to emerge and grid investments which are not priced in current PV deployment.
Sure, but the factories to make batteries are also being rolled out pretty quickly.
> and grid investments which are not priced in current PV deployment.
Which are necessary even without renewables, because of their age in the west and increased demand everywhere else.