| In uncertain times, this is excellent and refreshing news, because it means it will be very hard for fossil interests to slow the avalanche of clean energy transition simply out of cost decline and manufacturing learning rate figures. Too early to tell how quickly deployment velocity will increase (cost of capital, supply chain, labor constraints), but existing manufacturing capacity (~1.1TW) is built; that will not slow down. PV printer goes brrr. |
| Using GSC's 20% estimated capacity factor, you'd need 100TW of PV installed capacity to satisfy even current world marketed energy consumption of around 20TW, which would be 90 years at 1.1TW per year. But atmospheric carbon capture, not to mention other advancements, will probably require a significant amount of energy on top of that. Exponential growth, by contrast, would raise these 2TW to the required 100TW in 20 years if we assume a 22% annual growth rate, 10 years if we assume 48%. |
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| ▲ | toomuchtodo 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Think in systems. Yes, it is going to take some time to continue to deploy clean energy globally to meet total human energy consumption. But, as we hit economic inflection points, that will rapidly force coal and fossil gas out of the mix (unless someone with deep pockets is willing to light fiat on fire to keep uneconomic generation online). Once that fossil generation is demolished, it will be unlikely it comes back, locking in a clean path forward. Pakistan comes to mind, where so much solar is coming online from individuals and businesses, utility demand is rapidly being destroyed (potentially stranding those utility fossil generation assets and their capital investment). The sun is almost free, and batteries are getting cheap fast. Enough sunlight falls on the Earth in a few hours to power humanity for a year. https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-solar-power-renewable-energy-... https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/The-Uni... | | |
| ▲ | algo_trader 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Pakistan comes to mind, Interesting story - in pakistan, PV is an arbitrage/loophole. Pakistan exporters are under capital controls, so they get a very bad exchange rate when they convert to ruppee. Instead, they buy panels (getting 100% worth of their dollars), which they ship into pakistan, and sell. On the other side of the trade, home owners get a very generous feed in tarrif, due to pressure by wealthier constituents. This hits the local utility thrice (lost revenue, paying the feed in, AND massive duck curve) Sigh. Humans will human... (PV is still great and we need more of it) | |
| ▲ | kragen 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Agreed! Thank you very much for the DW article; I hadn't seen that, though I did mention that dynamic in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42266903. One nitpick, though. The article says, "Pakistan's solar revolution is only possible because of the plummeting cost of solar PV modules, which have reduced in price by 90% in the last 15 years alone," but the correct number is 94%, from €1.67/Wp for crystalline panels in China in November 02009 http://web.archive.org/web/20121027002200/http://www.solarse... to €0.10/Wp today https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis.... So the article understates the actual price drop by almost a factor of 2. | |
| ▲ | abdullahkhalids 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > (potentially stranding those utility fossil generation assets and their capital investment). This is not true. For most of Pakistan's power plants, the loans (denominated in US dollars) were given in exchange of sovereign guarantees by the State of Pakistan. So, the capitalists, in theory, don't have anything to worry about. The whole country could switch to renewables, and the State of Pakistan will still have to pay back on their investments. The reason for the sovereign guarantee is because Pakistan does not have a stable political landscape, so the free market risk is too high for such large investments. In practice, the government is forcing local investors to renegotiate some of the loan terms or contracts to reduce its payment obligations [1]. When I say forcing, I mean, mafia style. It's not clear how much this will help. [1] https://www.brecorder.com/news/40331398 | | |
| ▲ | algo_trader 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Also see my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42268194 If you are a local resident, is this true? | |
| ▲ | toomuchtodo 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Someone is taking a haircut on that debt, that is the stranding. Whether it’s Pakistan, the World Bank, or institutional investors, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. They could forgive the debt instead, but humans gonna human. Sovereign defaults are a thing, and sometimes necessary. It’s just numbers in a spreadsheet or database after all. | | |
| ▲ | abdullahkhalids 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Institutions like World Bank, Asian Development Bank or IMF will not take any sort of cuts or deviations from the loan schedule. International commercial investors won't also. They are also too many to negotiate with. Defaulting on those loans will send Pakistan's bonds and exchange rate into a tailspin. That leaves other countries. US and Europe will not change loan terms either. So what has happened since 2018, is that Pakistan takes additional loans from China, UAE or Saudia Arabia to pay off other loans. If then Pakistan is unable to pay their loans backs, these countries reschedule payments into the future. But because of consistent refusal of the Pakistan state and elite to restructure and improve the economy has meant that even these countries have lost their appetite for help. |
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