> As long as fossil fuels remain one of the cheapest easiest to scale ways to make power, there’s a similar incentive to cheat. If everyone else cuts emissions and you don’t, your margins are higher and you can undercut them. Global reductions require an all-cooperate scenario.

IMO economics always wins. You're never going to see an all-cooperate scenario.

You will see an all-compete scenario, so constantly reducing costs for alternatives is key but you also have to find a way to ensure that the producers can win economically too. This is the conundrum.

If solar panels get cheap enough to create high demand, then that demand has to carry through the process of manufacturing, installing and maintenance. Every time I read that solar has gotten even cheaper, I start calling for quotes to install them at my house and the prices are borderline obscene. Same for geothermal last time I needed to update my HVAC.

I want solar and geothermal to work but the economics are a challenge.

Keep in mind if you are in the US, your prices have been artificially raised by tariffs. 30% starting in 2018, then declining each year for a while to 15%. Those tariffs recently expired but when I searched I saw this article about new tariffs on certain countries solar as high as 123%.

All this to say, you calling a local company and getting quotes captures your price but that’s not quite the same as the global price.

https://esgnews.com/us-imposes-solar-tariffs-up-to-123-on-im...

EDIT: I was wrong - tariffs on eg Chinese made solar panels are more like 65% right now - there’s multiple tariffs. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/02/04/u-s-raises-solar-poly...

Point being the US government is making them expensive for US consumers but that’s not true for global markets where they want to have energy independence. Solar is in fact very cheap these days.

In Europe you get about 1000kWh a year from 1000kW of solar panel

A plug in solar panel and microinverter at the local supermarket is about €1k/kW. 9kW of solar for €9k/£8k/$10.5k to power an average US car and an average US house.

Avearge US car does 13,000 miles a year needs about 4,500kWh, so €4500

An average US home uses 11kWh a day, or 4,000 kWh a year, that would be another €4000

US electric price is an average 17c per kWh. That's a 15% ROI.

I suspect the costs your quoting are mainly things like scaffolding and labour, and that's not going to get cheaper.

The panels themselves - ignoring inverter, install, etc, are $100 for a 400W panel [0]. To generate a whopping 16,000kWh a year -- 70% more than the average -- you'd need to spend $4k on panels. Even if panels were free, your quotes would still be obscene because tradesmen charge obscene amounts (or rather roofing work is just expensive)

[0] https://www.solartradesales.co.uk/aiko-neostar-2s-460w-n-typ...