Understanding Solar Energy

I think a lot this comes down to huge cultural biases. And the two cultures are "hard energy" and "soft energy" folks. Coal, gas, fission, fusion, etc. are all hard energy. Coupled GDP and energy consumption was a core assumption. Renewables, energy efficiency, technological advancement via learning curves all fall under "soft energy".

Most of the energy industry was hard energy because that's what paid everyone's bills. Any estimates that did not cater at least a bit to those biases would just be completely ignored.

But there's another effect too: solar just completely outperforms even the most optimistic assessments. There's one famous solar financial analyst, whose name I'm blanking on, who continues to underestimate even though she knows the effect.

It was also underestimation of China. Outright chauvinism there.

iCal them „simple“ and „complex“ power. For someone who isn’t truly informed, a „Simple Energy“ solution seems much simpler than one based on renewable energy. With „simple“ power, solving climate change appears straightforward: just build more nuclear plants, which conveniently replace coal and gas on a 1:1 basis since they are baseload power generators.

Renewable energy, on the other hand, is (for now, the transition time) complex. It requires a better, smarter, and much larger interconnected grid, as well as intelligent management of supply, demand, and storage. It means considering and understanding multiple aspects at once. This complexity often leads people who are convinced that more simple power is the answer to dismiss the idea of renewables too quickly—because nuclear seems so much simpler.

I understand the appeal of simple energy. The sad part is that many people likely believe this is the scientifically correct position. And they are often so convinced that, even when presented with current studies and reasonable arguments against new nuclear plants, they quickly assume that the other person is just an irrational, biased anti-nuclear activist. After all, the simplest solution must also be the right one, right?

Being informed in this context doesn’t just mean knowing the pros and cons of nuclear, wind, or solar power. It requires a deep understanding of what is technically and financially feasible today—including energy forms, grid transformation, storage solutions (not just lithium-ion batteries), follow-up costs, sustainability (mining, waste disposal), as well as political, economic, military, and social implications. And how all of these factors interact.

But none of that is necessary if you just want to build more simple power plants.

The transition to 100% renewable energy is as complex as the development of the internet. If we were still relying on letters, telephones, fax machines, newspapers, radio, and TV, the idea of transitioning to a globally available, instant multimedia internet would have seemed just as utopian and impossible.

Jenny Chase perhaps:

> On Friday my colleagues suggested I get a tattoo reading "COWARDS", to save me time saying it in solar forecast calibration meetings.

That's her! She's done really amazing work for BloombergNEF.

Nuclear can’t (cheaply) replace gas.

Indeed. Particularly in the US, fracking was an extinction-level event for new nuclear construction.

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US...

“The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.