| ▲ | dzonga 4 hours ago |
| The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. As admitting that solar is now a superior and cost effective means of energy means admitting that the US is no longer top dog. As empires are built on mastering a source of energy. the Portuguese | Dutch - mastered wind to power their ships. the British mastered coal to power Industrial Revolution. America mastered oil now the Chinese have Solar. even in places like Africa etc -- places were the grid was never available for $2k -- you can power your whole house with solar and lithium batteries. Panels are getting cheaper, same as batteries. Once the tipping point is reached for electric vehicles both personal and commercial - transition to fully electric mobility happens |
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| ▲ | dylan604 an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| > The trump administration by refusing to admit the superior metrics of solar, they're just burying their heads in sand. I don't think I agree with this as it suggests they are doing it because they can't be bothered about it. Instead, they are doing it specifically because their (and/or their friend's) pockets are getting filled. To me, the latter is much more sinister. |
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| ▲ | floatrock 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Chinese also have battery manufacturing, whose rapidly falling cost-curve is what is missing to enable 24/7 solar. American empire ruled with the petrodollar. Chinese will rule with the solaryuan if we don't get our shit together. |
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| ▲ | jandrese an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | You just slightly missed the crux of the issue here. The big "problem" with renewables like solar is that once you've installed enough for yourself you are done for like 30 years. There is no monthly sun fee you need to keep paying. There is no solardollar, because there's nothing that needs to be extracted, transported, and sold every single day. A lot of billionaires are in an existential crisis over a world where fossil fuels are no longer the driving force of the economy. That's why we have incessant propaganda against renewable energy. Even the solar panel market is self defeating. Once there is enough installed power the demand will drop off sharply as the refresh cycle is too long. The feedback loop of capitalism means we are likely to reach that point sooner than you would expect. That said, don't think I'm like the nuclear power guys of the 50s who claimed that electricity would be so abundant that we wouldn't even bother to meter it. There are still costs with maintenance, repair, administration, debt servicing, and profits. If you look at your power bill today it will probably list generation, distribution, and taxes. Renewables only eliminate the generation costs, which are usually about half of the bill. | | |
| ▲ | citrin_ru an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > Even the solar panel market is self defeating. Once there is enough installed power the demand will drop off sharply as the refresh cycle is too long. It's not going to happen soon - solar is still just 8% of world energy production. Even if solar will cover 100% of consumption on a sunny day it still would make sense to buy more panels to have enough output on a cloudy day or in the morning/evening. It's likely production of solar panels will be a good business till at least 2050 and oil business will start to decline before that unless will be propped by corrupt politicians. | |
| ▲ | yoyohello13 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Seems like renewable maintenance companies will make a killing. | |
| ▲ | xbmcuser an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | True but there are 2 technology converges that are happening at the same time cheap energy that is getting cheaper. And automation powered by that energy that also gets cheaper as energy gets cheaper as well as efficiency gains. The current world economic systems and most government systems are unlikely to survive the upheaval that this will cause in the next 15-20 years. | |
| ▲ | ViewTrick1002 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | An interesting prospect is the grids getting smaller. Becoming distributed again. Why pay the enormous maintenance cost for a continental scale grid when you can in your neighborhood have a small local grid with solar, wind and storage followed by a tiny diesel/gas turbine ensuring reliability through firming. When deemed necessary decarbonize the firming by running it on carbon neutral fuels. |
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| ▲ | pksebben 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think you've misunderstood the term 'petrodollar'. Petrodollars are the American currency in circulation abroad because we bought other people's oil (principally Saudi), not exported our own. The 'export' that made the US powerful was finance and political manipulation - toppling socialist / populist leaders to install puppets and controlling economies by manipulating trade. I think your original point kind of stands, though - we are seeing a decline and independence from our supply chain is going to be a deciding factor in 'who's the next top dog', but I think the decline is going to be a lot uglier than a simple "they have it now and we don't" - it's going to be all the thrashing about that an aggressive international power does when the grift no longer works. | |
| ▲ | BLKNSLVR 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even if the US gets it's shit together it's already lost the solar and battery fight. It will have to win the next one - which it might do with AI. | | |
| ▲ | maxerickson 22 minutes ago | parent [-] | | What does it mean to lose? Like we can, uh, transfer the technology and build at whatever cost we can build at. Good luck to China charging us more than that cost. |
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| ▲ | Buttons840 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Also, the US has a lot of influence over the flow of oil in the world. A world of cheap solar energy removes that influence. |
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| ▲ | viewtransform 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| California power generation profile yesterday showing solar and battery proportion. https://engaging-data.com/california-electricity-generation/... |
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| ▲ | margalabargala 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Is California enough to drag the rest of the country with them, though? | | |
| ▲ | manacit 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Grid-connected PV in Texas has grown between 33% and over 100% every year since 2008, which outpaces the growth of solar in the US in the same timeframe. California's percentage of solar generation as a share of the entire solar generation in the USA has shrunk every year since 2016. It's not been accurate to say that California is dragging the rest of the country with them for a long time when it comes to energy generation. | |
| ▲ | 8ytecoder an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Texas, technically, generates more TWh than California. I think a data center boom followed by a bust would help a lot more than what California can do. Unlike in cars, CAs market size or regulations can’t help/hinder other fuel sources as much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewab... |
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| ▲ | nerdralph 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Panels prices bottomed about a year ago below many manufacturer's cash cost, and have gone mostly sideways since.
https://www.pvxchange.com/Price-Index If silver stays above $70/oz, prices will likely go up by 5-10%. Until Perovskite tandem technology matures, there's unlikely to be any significant reduction in PV module prices. |
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| ▲ | WarmWash 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Someone desperately needs to build the largest solar farm on earth, nakedly as a direct affront to China, and call it the "The Grand Trump Sun Energy Complex", with a large statue of him standing at the center of the massive radial field of panels. The dude would have no choice but to approve it and provide funding for it. |
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| ▲ | tokenless 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "Drill baby drill" as he said this week. |
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| ▲ | mlsu 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's just so breathtakingly OBVIOUS. And it has been for a decade. Yet we have done nearly nothing. I mean it doesn't really matter, does it? Even with 200% tariffs solar panels will still be cheapest. The entire global supply chain will move towards electrification. The only question is whether we will be left behind or not. |
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| ▲ | Gibbon1 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Some comment I read I keep coming back to. They (elites) will risk everything to give up nothing. The same elites that were telling us we can't have electric cars because the power grid can't support them are now building massive data centers for AI which they think will allow them to completely ignore the working class. |
